


(if) it's meant to be

by la_muerta



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background Relationships, Chef Alec, Developing Relationship, F/F, F/M, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Travel writer Magnus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-01-30 16:08:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21430975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_muerta/pseuds/la_muerta
Summary: It's common knowledge that everyone has one person out there who's supposedly the perfect other half of your soul, and that 80% of people eventually do find their soulmates. What's less often talked about, is that not all soulmatesstaytogether after they've found each other.Sometimes, finding the person you're "meant" to be with is just the easy part. After all, relationships take effort.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 273
Kudos: 640
Collections: Best Malec stories, Favorite Malec Stories





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to [Maeesha](https://twitter.com/corporalphan) for giving me the prompt! ❤️

Looking back, Magnus should have known that he would meet Alec when he was soaking wet and half-frozen, hiking in the dark in the middle of nowhere. 

Magnus wasn't sure if he really believed in things like fate and destiny, but the number of coincidences and decisions, both good and bad, that had led to this point was enough to make a person wonder. He had been aware that there were no public buses over the weekend in the quiet Tuscan countryside where he had rented his Airbnb cottage - the isolation had probably been part of the reason why it had been so damned cheap - but that had never been a problem before. Magnus travelled alone to far-flung and unusual places all the time for his travel video blog, and he usually either rented a bicycle or scooter, hitchhiked, or simply walked. He'd been lucky enough to hitch a ride with a couple of Canadian tourists in the morning on the way to the beautiful hilltop town of San Gimignano, a UNESCO world heritage site with its original 13th-century architecture still intact, and had rented a scooter for the day so he could zoom down the cobblestone streets to the medieval bell towers and quaint shops in the town, as well as visit the nearby vineyards and olive oil estates. He'd ended the day back at San Gimignano with a hearty dinner of local cheese and freshly-made pasta just as the sun was setting, his camera full of photos and video clips, and returned his scooter despite the shop owner's assurances that he could return it on Monday instead because he'd planned to head somewhere else and San Gimignano was too far in the wrong direction. 

Maybe he'd left the town when it was a little too dark, but while it had taken him ten minutes to hitch a ride the first time, he'd been walking for almost an hour now and none of the cars that had passed him had stopped, even if the drivers and passengers had turned to look curiously at him as they went by. A couple of them had actually laughed at him. He had been a little annoyed, but he'd taken it in stride and kept on walking. It was at least a three-hour walk back to his rented cottage up some pretty steep hills and it'd been a very long day considering he'd been up since sunrise, but although the nights were a little chilly this late in the year, he had a good sturdy jacket and the walking was keeping him warm.

It wasn't a great situation, but it certainly got a lot worse when Magnus heard thunder rumbling ominously overhead, then the sky cracked open and dumped what felt like Tuscany's entire annual rainfall on him.

Magnus' jacket was usually good enough against a light drizzle, but he hadn't been prepared for a blinding thunderstorm. He usually kept his camera and other electronic gear in waterproof ziplock bags so thankfully he didn't have to worry about that, but the roads were narrow and steep, and visibility was bad in the dark and the violent downpour. There were no lights anywhere around to indicate the presence of a farmhouse, but Magnus was just about to take his chances and move away from the side of the road to find shelter somewhere when the headlights of an oncoming car cut through the gloom. 

He stuck his thumb out and waved his arm up and down, hoping his light brown jacket would make him a little bit more visible in the endless black all around him. To his immense relief, the car stopped and the driver pushed open the passenger-side door. 

"What the hell are you doing? People don't pick up hitchhikers in Italy. Get in the car," the driver called out. Magnus didn't need to be asked twice. 

"Thank you, you're a lifesaver," Magnus said as he got in, trying his best to let as little of the rain and wind in as possible. "I'm Magnus."

"I'm Alec," his knight-in-a-shining-Alfa-Romeo replied. "Where're you from?" 

"Oh, everywhere. But home is Brooklyn, for now," Magnus said. Now that he was out of the storm, he'd had the opportunity to take a better look at the man who had stopped for him, and he had to say he liked what he saw - _and_ he had seen Alec checking him out not-so-subtly as well. "You're from New York too, aren't you?" 

"Yeah, here for a work thing. Where're you headed?"

Magnus' rented cottage was very much out of the way for Alec, but he turned the car around carefully on the slippery, narrow road without complaint. Alec clearly wasn't much of a talker, but the surprise of meeting someone from home all the way out here had such an air of serendipity that Magnus wondered if Alec was also thinking the same thing that he was. It usually wasn't polite to ask when you'd barely exchanged a few sentences though, so they both skirted around the topic, keeping the conversation light. Magnus found out that Alec had been on his way to his hotel, arriving in the area just as Magnus was preparing to leave, and was here to find suppliers for saffron and Vernaccia white wine for his restaurant in New York. Unfortunately, Magnus recognised the name of his restaurant immediately - The Institute was one of those really expensive places with a waitlist a mile long which served fusion molecular gastronomy stuff Magnus' didn't really think qualified as food, since you'd probably leave still hungry even after you forked out a few hundred dollars for a five-course meal. But Magnus kept his opinions to himself, for now at least. Alec's fingers were bare, and from their conversation he'd figured out that Alec hadn't found his soulmate either.

Even before Magnus' soulmate mark had appeared when he was thirteen, he'd assumed that he'd just _know_, when he met his soulmate. He'd assumed it with Camille, Imasu, Etta, and George, and each time he'd been so sure that this time would be the right one, but each time both their marks had remained unchanged three days after they'd been together, the longest most experts said one should expect to wait to see a change in the soul-mark. Camille had insisted that it was because he hadn't tried hard enough, and because she'd been his first girlfriend, he'd stayed with her for almost a month before coming to his senses and dumping her. Imasu had dumped _him_ when the three days were up. But even though Etta had said that she didn't care, and George had _claimed_ that he didn't care that they weren't soulmates, those relationships had eventually fizzled out after a year or so; it was hard to stay with someone when it was always at the back of their mind that there was someone out there who was "meant" for them, and Magnus knew that he was as much to blame for the way those relationships had fallen apart. Of course there was always the chance that he was that unlucky one in five of the population who never found their soulmates, but he couldn't help hoping anyway. 

And this time... well. There was certainly something different about Alec, maybe even more so than the rest, but it could just as easily be wishful thinking. 

Too soon, Alec's GPS showed that they'd arrived at Magnus' cottage. Magnus glanced at the clock on the dashboard of the car as Alec pulled up as close as he could to the front door - it was almost midnight, and the rain didn't look like it was letting up any time soon. The question left unsaid between them lingered, a possibility. They could always exchange numbers and catch up when they were both back in New York, but... 

"Do you want to spend the night here instead of driving another four hours to your hotel in this storm?" Magnus offered. "There's only one bed, but I could take the couch."

Alec licked his lips. "Are you sure?" 

"Yes. You're stuck out here because of me, after all."

"Yeah, it's kind of a freak storm, isn't it? I've never seen it rain like this all the times I've been in the area," Alec said. 

Magnus made a dash to the front door in the rain to fumble with the unfamiliar lock, insisting that Alec should stay in the warmth of the car until he finally got the door open. Then, while Magnus grabbed a couple of towels for them to dry off, Alec got the kettle boiling so they could each have a mug of hot tea. 

"Were you serious about me staying?" Alec asked. "What if I'm a serial killer or something?"

"Maybe _I'm_ the serial killer, preying on good samaritans who'll pick up a guy trying to hitchhike in a place where they don't pick up hitchhikers," Magnus suggested, and Alec flashed an adorable lopsided grin at Magnus over the rim of his mug. Magnus cleared his throat. "Ok, I'm just going to bite the bullet and ask - you haven't found your soulmate yet, have you?" 

Alec shook his head. "You neither, huh?" 

"I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours," Magnus said with a teasing smile. 

Alec shrugged, then turned so that his back was facing Magnus and pulled up his sweater. "Mine's a circle. A little to the left."

"I see it," Magnus murmured. It was smaller than his palm, an empty circle.

So Alec had a pretty generic starting soul-mark, which was common enough. Some people had very distinctive ones, the kind that matched their soulmate's mark perfectly once you saw them, but most people had simple soul-marks, a geometric shape or sometimes just a line, which was why there was such a big industry built around soul-mark "consultants", soul-mark databases and computer programmes that claimed to be able to suggest the most likely matches for marks based on complex algorithms. There was no scientific basis for these claims, though, and Magnus was inclined to agree that it was all nonsense. He had seen elderly couples who had been together for so long that their soul-marks had grown into full sleeves from their shoulders to their wrists, and most of the time there was a connecting theme - forests and skyscrapers, or waves and musical notations - but some of their starting marks must have seemed completely unrelated. 

Alec tugged his sweater down as he turned around, and Magnus put his mug of tea down so that he could pop open the button of his jeans. 

Alec's eyes went wide. "Um, what...?" 

"Sorry, my jeans are too tight," Magnus explained, struggling to pull down the waistband enough to reveal his mark - the outline of a small triangle on his right hip, all its three sides of different lengths. 

Alec swallowed hard. "Oh." He drained his mug in one gulp. 

Alec insisted that Magnus should take a hot bath first since he was soaked to the bone, and normally Magnus would have taken his time after the exhausting day he'd had, but he was mindful of using up all the hot water. By the time Alec came out of the bath dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants from his rucksack, Magnus had already made a little nest of blankets on the couch. 

"Magnus, this is your place, you should take the bed."

"No, I owe you for giving me a lift. Besides, I don't think you'll fit."

"_You_ hardly fit on the couch either," Alec pointed out. "We could just share the bed, it's huge. I mean... we're just gonna sleep. Right?"

Magnus grinned mischievously. "Of course. I can't imagine what else we could do in bed."

Alec huffed and rolled his eyes at him, well aware that he was being teased, and they both got ready for bed, navigating the tiny bathroom without getting in each other's way too much. The bed was big enough for both of them to lie side by side without touching, so for a while they just lay in the dark, looking up at the ceiling and listening to the storm outside. Magnus knew that Alec was awake and he couldn't sleep either despite the long day. It was probably just because Alec was technically a stranger, but Magnus was hyperaware of the inches of space between them, as if it was tingling with static electricity. Magnus closed his eyes resolutely, trying to think of anything else other than the fact that Alec was lying right next to him. The thing was, there had been multiple studies done on what triggered the change in a soul-mark when soulmates finally met, but the results had all been inconclusive. It seemed to be different for everyone, but a few things were widely accepted as triggering factors - prolonged proximity, and meaningful physical contact.

"Magnus?" 

"Hm?" 

"Are you waiting for your soulmate? I mean, I know some people don't want to get involved with anybody else."

Magnus grinned in the dark. "Alexander, are you trying to ask me if I'm willing to have sex with you?" 

"Actually, I thought we could hold hands," Alec said drily, and Magnus laughed.

"I've been in relationships with other people, but I don't do one-night stands," Magnus admitted, but he reached out to place one hand in the space between them, palm up.

"Fair enough," Alec replied, taking his hand with a smile. "Goodnight, Magnus."

"Goodnight, Alexander."

Magnus woke up the next morning to bright sunlight streaming in through a gap in the curtains and Alec's hand still in his. Alec was still asleep, snoring gently. The first thing Magnus did was to surreptitiously pull down the waistband of his sweatpants to check his mark, but much to his disappointment it was still a blank triangle. He extricated his hand from Alec's, and although he'd tried to be careful not to wake him, Alec began to stir. 

"Morning," Alec said, then must have read the expression on Magnus' face.

"Stay for breakfast? I have bread and cheese that I should probably finish before I move on anyway," Magnus offered.

Magnus tried not to get his hopes while Alec was washing up - sometimes, very rarely, one partner's mark would change faster than the other partner's - but when Alec walked into the kitchen he could tell that Alec's mark hadn't changed either. They ate in relative silence. Sure, sometimes it took longer for a mark to change, but most people saw changes within a few hours, and they both knew that.

"Where are you headed to after this? I could give you a lift," Alec offered when they were clearing up after breakfast.

"Oh no, you really don't have to, Alexander. I've already taken up so much of your time as it is," Magnus protested.

"It's fine, I don't mind," Alec said with a shrug. "Besides, it's Sunday and nobody picks up hitchhikers around here, remember?"

Magnus packed quickly, leaving a note of thanks and a small gift for his host, and found Alec already waiting out in the car. Despite everything, Magnus found the awkwardness and disappointment from the morning starting to wear off as they talked. Alec really was very sweet, and there was a clear attraction between them - clear enough that Magnus was tempted to throw the whole soulmate business out of the window and just take a chance to see where this went. Magnus was turning thirty in a few weeks, and he was starting to think that maybe he was part of that 20 percent who never found their soulmates. If Alec happened to be part of that 20 percent as well, wasn't it kind of poetic if they chose each other? 

"Hey, we should meet up when we're back in New York. Give me a call, I'll get you a free VIP table at The Institute," Alec said when they finally pulled up in front of Magnus' hostel. 

"Thanks, I'll be sure to take you up on that," Magnus said with a smile. 

He stood there watching Alec's car until it went out of sight, then got his check-in paperwork settled and trudged up to his room. He should put his bags down and get started on the many places he'd been planning to cover today, but his heart was heavy and he kind of missed Alec's company already. Instead, like a fucking masochist he ended up trying to take a look at his soul-mark again in the bathroom mirror, and his heart skipped a beat. He stared at the reflection, then down at his mark, and in the end he resorted to using his phone to take a photo of his mark so he could see it more clearly. There was no doubt about it - the faint lines of a second triangle were forming, a mirror image of the starting mark. 

"Oh my god," Magnus whispered. 

He was out of the door and racing down the stairs in an instant, already dialling Alec's number. Alec was probably quite a distance away by now, and he was driving so he wouldn't be able to read a message but he might be able to answer a call with his Bluetooth headset. Magnus ran out to the street, looking around for Alec's car, but it wasn't a very distinctive vehicle, and Alec wasn't answering the phone, so Magnus started typing out a message and attached the photo he had taken of his own mark. Magnus knew that logically there wasn't any real urgency since they had each other's numbers, but there was no way he was just going to sit around patiently waiting for Alec to notice and come back to find Magnus - and because Alec's mark was on his back he probably wouldn't even notice that it had changed for hours yet. 

Magnus had just hit 'send' when a car horn blared at him. He looked up to see Alec's car zooming down the street towards him, and Alec got out of the car with a blinding smile on his face. 

"I just had a hunch. Stopped by at the gas station so I could look in the mirror," Alec explained a little breathlessly. 

"It's really you. I _knew_ it was you," Magnus said, laughter bubbling out of him in an uncontrollable surge of joy, and when he cupped Alec's face and finally kissed his soulmate for the first time, it felt like coming home. 


	2. Chapter 2

Magnus had been planning on staying in Siena for only one more day before flying back to New York, but he'd agreed that he could extend his stay and wait for Alec since there were other things he could cover for his travel blog that were in the vicinity of Alec's hotel in San Gimignano. The airline had been very understanding about letting Magnus change his ticket at the last minute, because finding your soulmate was just one of those things like a birth of a child or death in the family - so unplanned and life-changing that people were generally willing to be accommodating. 

And also because it was something that probably happened to thousands of people all over the world every day, everyone understood what an incredibly joyous occasion it usually was. The hotel had upgraded Alec's room to the honeymoon suite for free, and when the man Magnus had rented his scooter from the day before recognised him and found out why Magnus was back in San Gimignano, he had insisted on throwing a small dinner party for the two of them since they were both far away from home and a proper celebration with their own friends and family would have to wait a few more days.

But it hadn't been a _small_ dinner party. There had been at least forty people there, complete strangers, and most of them were pairs of soulmates of all ages and sexualities. Alec felt like he'd suddenly become part of a club he hadn't really asked to join, and although the couples there had been happy to reminisce _their_ first meetings, most of them wanted to hear how he'd met Magnus, and every time a new couple joined the party they would ask Magnus to tell them the story again. Not everyone spoke or understood English, but that didn't seem to matter - those that did were happy to translate, and after the fifth or sixth retelling his own memories felt like they were starting to get muddled up.

Fortunately, Magnus noticed his discomfort almost immediately and didn't seem to mind handling most of the attention, and eventually managed to extricate them after thanking their hosts for their well wishes. The dimly-lit cobblestone streets were quiet as they walked hand-in-hand back to the hotel, and Alec couldn't help heaving a sigh of relief at finally being able to hear himself think again. 

"Not a people person?" Magnus asked. 

"Not particularly," Alec admitted. "Didn't you find it uncomfortable how everyone wanted to know every detail about how we met and how we knew we were soulmates?" 

"Everyone likes a good soulmate story," Magnus pointed out. 

"Yes, but it's not just a story, it's our lives. It's kinda personal, isn't it? And honestly, I think it made such a good story only because you were the one telling it. You made me sound like I was galloping in on a white horse to rescue you while you were on the verge of dying by the side of the road."

Magnus laughed. "If it makes you uncomfortable, I won't tell it to other people anymore, even if they ask," he promised. He smiled at Alec and squeezed his hand lightly, and Alec was pleasantly surprised to find that even simple things like that felt different with Magnus. 

Alec had never put much thought into imagining what his soulmate might be like, but he didn't think he'd have had the imagination to dream up someone like Magnus. It wasn't just his charisma, or how incredibly beautiful he was; when Magnus was in the room, Alec just couldn't look away from him. 

Getting ready for bed that night brought a new kind of tension. Magnus had joked that it was because he'd never slept in a room that cost more than his entire lodging budget for this trip if he'd had to actually pay for it, but they both knew it wasn't that. Just the night before, they'd been strangers; the knowledge that they were soulmates hadn't changed the fact that they still didn't know much about each other, and Alec didn't want to assume anything. 

"Do you want me to take the couch?" he asked Magnus. 

"Actually, I thought we could hold hands," Magnus replied sweetly, laughing when Alec narrowed his eyes at him, then added more seriously, "We were perfectly fine sharing a bed last night, Alexander. Let's not overthink this. Besides, it'd be a waste of this very extravagant four-poster if you slept on the couch."

Alec shrugged and got on the bed, huffing in amusement when Magnus placed his hand palm up between them again. 

"Am I right to think that you want to take things slow?" he asked, taking Magnus' hand. 

Magnus turned on his side to look at him, searching his face. "I thought we could get to know each other a little better first and just treat it as we would any normal relationship. After all, we're not in a hurry, are we?" 

"Yeah, we're not. I don't mind," he assured Magnus. Even without Magnus having to explain himself, he knew exactly how he was feeling - it was hard to wrap his mind around this strange idea that they somehow belonged with each other, a truth that he could feel in his bones, without even knowing Magnus as a person.

"It feels surreal, doesn't it?" Magnus asked him with a smile, echoing his thoughts. "Can I see your mark?"

Alec nodded easily, sitting up to pull his shirt up and turned his back towards Magnus. They hadn't had the time earlier that day in all the excitement - after Alec had driven back to find Magnus, there had been all the logistics like hotel bookings and plane tickets to handle, then they'd called up their own families and friends to break the news, and since they'd both been here for work there had been people Alec had been supposed to meet and contracts to sign. Even Alec had checked his mark in the mirror again after his shower to make sure he wasn't dreaming. 

He heard Magnus shifting behind him. "Can I touch it?" Magnus asked. 

"Sure."

Alec had braced himself for the contact, but the touch of Magnus' fingertips still made him jump a little. He kept very still as Magnus traced the shape of the original circle, then the line that had started to make its way across his back, already twice as long as it had been this morning. 

"What do you think it's going to be?" he asked Magnus.

"I don't know. It's still too early to tell, isn't it?" Magnus murmured. He moved his hand away and Alec tugged his shirt down. "Want to see mine?"

"Yeah, of course," Alec replied, and turned around to find Magnus stretched out on his back with his hands behind his head.

"Be my guest," Magnus said, but didn't seem inclined to help. Alec knew he was doing this on purpose - given the position of Magnus' mark, it meant that Alec had to pull Magnus' pants down a little to see it.

He rolled his eyes at Magnus, but managed to pull the waistband of Magnus' loose sleep pants down just enough to reveal the mark with minimal contact. Where there had been only one triangle previously, there were now two joined to make a diamond shape, and a third already starting to form. _He_ had put those marks on Magnus' skin, just by existing in the same place and time as Magnus - if there was such a thing as a soul, were these marks somehow a reflection of his own soul, or of the way Magnus' soul was reacting to his?

"We should start our own tradition - charting each other's marks at the end of the day to see how much they've changed," Magnus suggested. 

"Yeah, I'd like that," Alec said, not quite able to tear his eyes away from the mark. 

"You can touch, if you want," Magnus said softly. 

Alec glanced up to see Magnus watching him, his posture nonchalant but shoulders tense from the way he was holding his breath. What Alec really wanted to do was put his lips on Magnus' soul-mark and press kisses down the tantalisingly sharp vee of his hip and see where that led. But he went with his gut and only brushed his thumb over the mark reverently before quickly backing off and lying down next to Magnus, making sure to leave a bit of space between them. Magnus wasn't like the rest of the guys he'd been with, and he was going to do this right.

"Is it a bad time to mention that I've never done relationships, only one-night stands?" Alec asked, staring up at the wispy white fabric canopy draped over their bed.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Magnus' eyebrow go up, but Magnus shook his head and took Alec's hand again. "Who you were with before me is not really my business, and I'd prefer that we're always honest with each other."

"I mean, it's not like there've been a lot of them," Alec clarified hurriedly. "I just- they didn't mean anything." 

"Alexander, relax. I promise I wasn't expecting you to lock yourself away in a tower until I came along," Magnus said with a laugh, scooting a little closer. "But if you haven't been in a relationship before, it sounds like you've been waiting for me, in a way."

Alec shrugged, chewing on his lower lip contemplatively. "I've never felt strongly enough about anyone else to want to take it beyond the physical side of things. My parents weren't soulmates, so I wasn't brought up thinking that soulmates were that important. If you give Izzy the chance she'll go on a rant about how the whole concept of soulmates is illogical and oppressive, and Jace just uses it as a way to hook up with people."

Magnus grinned. "Ah. The classic 'let's get to know each other better somewhere private to see if we're soulmates' - which, as I recall, you tried to use on me."

"I did not!" Alec protested indignantly. "Wait, you don't actually think that was what I was trying to do, right? Because I wasn't, I knew there was something different about you the moment you got into my car."

"I'm just teasing you, Alexander," Magnus said gently. "I do that a lot."

"I've noticed," Alec grumbled, but turned to face Magnus fully, so that both of them were now lying with their faces only inches apart, bodies curled under the covers and cleaving towards each other almost subconsciously.

"Well, you've told me what your siblings think about soulmates, but what about you?" Magnus asked. 

"I was curious about what my soulmate might be like, but I wasn't sure if it would be any different from a non-soulmate relationship until recently," Alec admitted. "I'd always assumed that my parents were happy together, but my mom filed for divorce once Izzy was out of college, and we found out that my dad had been cheating on her for years. That's when I started thinking that there was something to this soulmate business. But I sort of figured it would happen when it happened, y'know? I didn't go looking."

"So I suppose you've never submitted your mark to one of those soul-mark databases or gone to one of those 'lucky' spots, like that pop art sculpture at the corner of Sixth Avenue where a lot of people have apparently found their soulmates," Magnus said. 

"It's probably only 'lucky' because everyone thinks it's lucky and went there looking for their soulmates," Alec pointed out, and Magnus laughed. 

"Such a cynic."

"Did you go there, then?" 

"I've been to every single one of these 'lucky' spots in every country I've been in, but that's mostly because that's the kind of thing people are interested in on a travel blog. When I broke up with my first girlfriend, my mom was still alive, and she told me she believed that we find our soulmates at exactly the right moment in our lives. I've always held that advice close to heart."

"Maybe she's right. My mom found her soulmate a few months ago, completely out of the blue," Alec told Magnus. "I've never seen her seem so... _free_. She was going through a really tough time because she got retrenched after the divorce, and I think the new relationship gave her the boost she needed to reinvent herself."

"Just imagine, finding your soulmate after years of believing that you'd never find them," Magnus said with a sigh. "I don't know if that's happy or sad. But I'm glad we didn't have to wait like they did."

Alec smiled at him and held his hand a little tighter. "Yeah, me too. I'm glad the right time for us was now." 

\--

Three days later, Alec and Magnus walked out into the arrival hall at JFK airport to find their friends and family waiting eagerly for them - Alec's mom, her soulmate Luke, Jace, as well as Magnus' best friends Ragnor and Catarina, who were soulmates, and a close friend named Dot who was married to her soulmate. 

They all went for a simple celebratory dinner together since Alec had insisted on keeping it low-key, but Alec could feel his mood dropping. After dinner, he and Magnus would be going their separate ways, at least temporarily - Magnus had an apartment in Brooklyn, while Alec lived in an apartment that was part of a townhouse in Upper East Side, with his family taking up the other apartments in the townhouse. As it happened, the lease on Magnus' apartment was almost up, so Maryse had suggested that Alec could move out of his single-storey apartment to the larger, currently vacant duplex just upstairs, which also belonged to the Lightwoods, and share that with Magnus. But moving in with each other and finding a way to fit their separate their lives in New York together would take a while, and in just a few days Alec had already gotten used to the simplicity of waking up next to Magnus every morning with the sunlight streaming in through the bed curtains and the balcony view of vineyards and rolling hills stretching for miles. San Gimignano had technically been work but felt like a honeymoon, a vacation from the reality of Alec's life in New York, over too soon. 

"I'll FaceTime you tonight," Magnus promised before he went off with Ragnor and Catarina, who were giving him a lift. "We need to keep up our tradition of charting our marks, after all."

"Yeah, and I'll meet you after work tomorrow to give you a tour of the apartment," Alec agreed. He leaned forward to kiss Magnus, closing his eyes and lingering a little longer in Magnus' arms before reluctantly letting him go. 

He knew Jace wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to give him shit about it, but his brother managed to hold his tongue until they were back home. He came out of the shower to find Jace on his couch, his carefully-packed luggage strewn in a mess all over the living room from Jace poking through to find the stuff he'd brought back from his trip. 

Jace popped open one of the bottles of wine Alec had brought home and poured out two glasses. "Here, a toast to you, for your life turning into one of those crappy rom-coms where everyone spends the whole time narrowly missing each other, only for all of them to miraculously find their soulmates in the last five minutes of the movie."

"Fuck you," Alec said mildly, but took the glass of wine Jace was holding out to him. 

"Hey no, it's not a bad thing," Jace said with a laugh. "You deserve your happily ever after with the disgustingly sappy soulmate wedding, a house in the suburbs, and adopting two children and half-a-dozen dogs. Seven billion people on the planet, man. I don't believe what they say about most people finding their soulmate eventually. You're a lucky sonofabitch."

"Thanks. I think," Alec said. 

"Too bad Izzy is away in Antarctica studying the ice shelves or whatever. Guess I'll just have to drink her share of the wine for now," Jace said, draining his glass of wine in one gulp and pouring himself another glass. "So what's the sex like? Is it really better with your soulmate?"

Alec choked on the sip of wine he'd just taken. "What the fuck? Why would you ask me something like that?" 

"Who else am I gonna ask? C'mon, spill."

"You're gross, fuck off."

"Shit, so it's bad?" 

"No! We're taking things slow, alright?" Alec said with a frown. 

Jace stared at him like he'd grown two heads. "Wait, so you mean you haven't slept together yet? You've spent half a week together in some romantic medieval castle in Italy and he's your _soulmate_!" 

"Yes, but that doesn't mean we need to hop into bed immediately," Alec said crossly. 

"Fuck, are you guys like _wooing_ each other or something, because that's sickening," Jace said, making a gagging sound. "I can't wait for Izzy to be back so I'm not surrounded by lovey-dovey soulmate pairs."

Alec blinked at Jace, then grinned as realisation dawned. "Should I drive you out to the 'lucky' sculpture on Sixth Avenue?"

"Wow, fuck you and your smug face," Jace griped, and just then Alec's phone began to ring.

"Ok, I know that's Magnus. I'm going to back to my apartment to drink this all by myself," Jace said, hugging the bottle of wine to his chest on the way out, then his expression grew serious. "Hey, jokes aside, I'm really happy for you."

"Great, thank you, _bye_," Alec said pointedly, laughing when Jace showed him the finger as he left.


	3. Chapter 3

Magnus had always loved the freedom of being self-employed. The mobile nature of his job meant that he could uproot himself anytime he wanted and just move on to the next place that struck his fancy with lodging as his only worry, and since he had no family but plenty of friends all over the world, there was almost always a couch for him to crash on while he found a slightly more permanent place to stay. He'd moved to New York mainly because Ragnor and Catarina had decided to settle down here when Catarina had been granted tenure at New York University, and it was strange to think that the city that he'd moved to on a whim a couple of years ago would likely be his home from now on, since Alec was here. 

He'd stayed up a little too late the night before talking to Alec, actually falling asleep while still on the phone with him, probably because they'd gotten into the habit of having long conversations while lying in bed in San Gimignano. So with the jetlag on top of everything, he was mostly running on caffeine at this point. It was lucky that he didn't actually need to get dressed to sit at his desk and edit photos and video clips. 

And there was plenty that needed to be done. Normally he covered some of his work when he got back to his hostel after the day's travels, but he'd given that up in favour of spending time with Alec, and he'd also stayed in Italy longer than he'd initially planned. Some of his income came from the ads on his website and views on his videos, but most of it came from product endorsement, selling his photos to hotels and the tourist attractions he'd visited, and freelance articles for various travel magazines. With almost two million subscribers on his channel, Magnus was popular enough as a travel vlogger that he could have made a tidy sum with an exclusive article on how he'd met his soulmate, but he'd decided to break the news very quietly on his own site with a simple explanation for why he'd stayed in Italy for a few more days, out of respect for Alec's need for privacy. Even then, by the time he came back from a very, very late lunch - three packets of instant ramen, which would probably have given his fancy-chef soulmate an aneurysm - his mailbox was flooded and his phone was being inundated with notifications from all his social media accounts. 

He should have been starting on an article for a magazine, but instead he started scrolling through and skimming the comments, intending to take a few minutes for himself before diving back into work. There were a lot of comments begging for details about how he'd met Alec and a lot of freaking out, but it was the handful of comments perhaps jokingly asking when the wedding was that threw him off a little.

It shouldn't have. Of course that was hopefully where his relationship with Alec was going... right? Ragnor and Catarina had gotten engaged three months after meeting each other, and Dot had married her soulmate Elliot within two months. Come to think of it, Magnus didn't know any soulmate couples who weren't married or engaged, and that usually happened very quickly. Strangely enough, even though Magnus had hoped to find his soulmate all his life, now that he'd finally found him, he didn't have any idea of what to do next. 

He picked up his phone and texted Catarina, and in a few minutes she called him back. "I thought you'd call. You caught me after my last lecture of the day, so you have my full attention, however long you need," she assured him. 

"It's just a lot to process," Magnus admitted. "When they said meeting your soulmate would change your life, I hadn't really thought about how much and how quickly."

"Just go with the flow, you're usually good at that. Alec isn't pressuring you into anything, is he?" 

"No, he isn't. Although we're meeting later to take a look at an apartment we're thinking of sharing," Magnus said, and he had to confess that while it seemed a little too soon for them to be moving in with each other, he'd woken up several times in the night with the feeling that his bed seemed too empty without Alec. 

"It's normal to crave physical proximity with your soulmate when you first meet them. I have some books on what to expect when you first meet your soulmate that I can lend you," Catarina told him. "After a couple of weeks things will feel a little less intense."

"That's good to know, considering I have that sponsored trip to Paris coming up," Magnus said in relief. "I don't know what I'd been expecting, but I wasn't prepared to feel like this."

"I don't think anybody ever is. We don't deal well with sudden catastrophes, but we often don't deal well with things suddenly going right for us either. Change is always difficult at first, even if it's a good thing," Catarina said with a laugh. "Alec seems sweet, but he's very quiet. I'd never have expected your soulmate to be such a serious man."

"Oh, he's just quiet around people he's not familiar with," Magnus said, smiling to himself. 

"Then you should bring him round to our usual lunch on Sunday. We'd all love to get to know him better, and Madzie is pretty excited to meet him."

"It'll probably just be me for now. Alec doesn't get weekends off, The Institute is only closed on Wednesdays," Magnus explained regretfully. 

"Oh, right. I'd forgotten that he owns a restaurant," Catarina said. "Well, we'll see him when we see him. He's your soulmate after all, he's already part of the family."

By the time Magnus got off the phone with Catarina, he was feeling a little more at ease - the benefits of having a best friend who was a professor in clinical psychology. He turned off all his notifications on his social media accounts and turned his attention back to his work, and he sent off his article with just enough time left to shower, get dressed, and call an Uber to get to the address Alec had given him.

It was almost midnight by the time he reached the residence of the Lightwoods, and Magnus had to check the address twice to make sure he had the right place. Judging from the other buildings in the row, the townhouse owned by the Lightwoods had originally been two adjacent townhouses, combined and refurbished with a new limestone facade, and it was probably as close to a mansion as one got in a land-scarce place like New York City. Magnus thought he was doing pretty well for himself, but the Lightwoods were obviously in an entirely different league. When Alec had said that his mom had been retrenched and just gone through a divorce, his impression of their financial situation was far removed from the reality. 

The lights were still lit on some of the floors of the townhouse. Magnus made his way up the short flight of steps in front and pressed the buzzer, and in a few minutes Alec opened the door, a towel around his neck and his hair still damp.

"Hey," Alec greeted him, pecking him briefly on the lips. "I'm sorry we had to meet so late. I cooked enough for two, so I hope you're hungry."

Magnus' stomach growled loudly, right on cue. "Oops. I was so busy today that I forgot to eat dinner. How did you know?"

Alec shrugged and smiled. "Just had a feeling. I'm often too busy to eat when I'm working too. Let's eat before I show you around."

The main door opened to a small foyer and a stairway that led to the apartments on the upper floors. Magnus had noticed that the building had four storeys rather than the three storeys he'd been expecting, but apparently the rooms on the ground floor "didn't count" because they were communal spaces - a dining room and a fully-equipped kitchen, which was currently filled with the mouth-watering sweet and salty smell of stir-fried _lo mien_ with fresh shrimp, scallops, and _bok choy_. After they'd both eaten their fill, Alec showed him the small garden and garage at the back, the basement (which also "didn't count" because the gym and actual fucking 40-foot swimming pool in it were also communal spaces), then Alec gave Magnus a brief tour of his own apartment, which had a huge bedroom, study, and living room. Finally, they went up to the apartment they were meant to be sharing, which consisted of two floors and access to a rooftop terrace with a heated jacuzzi pool. The apartment also had two bedrooms with walk-in closets and en suite bathrooms, two spare rooms that could be used as home offices, as well as a small kitchen and bar. 

"I used to share this apartment with Jace. But when Izzy went off to the Antarctic, Jace took over her apartment because he wanted his own space, and this was just too big for me," Alec explained. "It doesn't have much furniture in it, but I figured you might have some things of your own or we could pick out some stuff together. What do you think?"

He turned to face Magnus, and his brows furrowed. "Is something wrong?"

Magnus tried to smile at Alec, but he knew it was a little strained. "I just didn't realise your family were like the Rockefellers."

Alec ducked his head in embarrassment. "The house belonged to my great-grandfather, and most of the renovations were done when I was still little. My mom got the house in the divorce mainly because it was hers in the first place and also because of us, but that was pretty much it. It's really not a big deal."

Sure, maybe they didn't have to pay rent for property that had been in the family for generations, but the tax on the place was probably ridiculous, and the small fleet of housekeepers and maintenance staff they had to hire to keep the place liveable couldn't have come cheap. But Magnus just said, "No, it's fine. It just took me by surprise, that's all. I've always wanted a walk-in closet."

Alec looked relieved. "I thought having separate bedrooms would suit us better for now, so we're still close but not living in each other's pockets. More like roommates." 

"I'm fine with that, but are you sure your mom wouldn't want to rent this out instead?" 

"She tried looking for tenants, but apparently I scared everyone off," Alec said with a shrug. 

Magnus laughed and took Alec's hand. "Luckily, I don't scare that easily."

\--

Magnus didn't have very much in the way of belongings, mostly clothes and books, so packing was easy. Alec had moved some furniture up from his old apartment, so they only had to buy a bed for Magnus, a couch, and a fridge, and Magnus was ready to move in the next week.

Magnus had to admit that it was a relief. His schedule was relatively flexible, but Alec worked gruelling hours, going to the restaurant early in the morning to prepare for the lunch crowd and staying till past closing hours to make sure everything was in order and ready for the next day. Hopefully with both of them living in the same space, even if they spent some of that time sleeping, it would ease the emotional and mental strain caused by not having the time to properly nurture their soulmate bond. 

He moved in on a Wednesday so Alec would be around, and he was unpacking his clothes, which barely took up a quarter of the walk-in closet, when he heard a commotion downstairs. Magnus went downstairs to investigate and found Alec arguing with the men who had delivered their new fridge - which Magnus couldn't help but notice was a brilliant sparkly blue. 

"If what we wanted was out of stock, then someone should have told us when we bought it, not after it'd been delivered," Alec fumed. 

"It's not that bad," Magnus said soothingly. The cabinets, tiles, and countertops in the kitchen were all done in shades of blue, so the blue fridge actually fit in quite well despite its slightly garish shade. "It still works no matter what colour it is."

Alec ran a hand through his hair in frustration, making it stick out every which way, but relented a little. "Ok, that's true. But it just isn't what we ordered."

In the end, Magnus called the shop and managed to wrangle a free waffle iron in compensation for the blue fridge, and they got everything in its place in time to cook a simple dinner together. Well, if Alec would stop frowning at the fridge as if he could intimidate it into changing colour if he glared at it hard enough. Magnus was struck by a sudden brainwave and came down with a small box of fridge magnets that he'd collected over the years. 

"You know, the colour of this fridge actually makes a good backdrop for these. I always thought they'd look a bit too much on grey or silver," he said, starting to cover the offending blue surface with chintzy little souvenirs: brightly coloured renditions of famous landmarks from all over the world, most of them made of cheap resin, acrylic, or rubber. "Anyway, I've never had a fridge of my own to stick them on."

Alec stopped sulking enough to come over and help him put up the contents of the box. "Are these all places you've been to?" 

Magnus nodded. "I seldom go to the same place twice. I bought the first one on a whim on my first trip and it's just become a sort of tradition," he said, then frowned. "Although with everything going on, I forgot to buy one in Siena."

"I bought one at the gas station so I wouldn't be using their toilet without buying anything," Alec said, and went to fetch it from his room. He placed it on the fridge next to the one Magnus had bought in San Gimignano, the two places that had been significant in how they'd met, and Magnus smiled when he felt Alec’s arm curl lightly around his waist. 

"Maybe I can go to some new places with you," Alec said. 

"I'd like that," Magnus replied, leaning into the touch, and looked up at Alec with a mischievous grin. "Speaking of new places... How about we try out that jacuzzi pool on the roof after dinner?" 

The nights were getting chilly, so after they'd put away the dishes and showered, they went up to the roof with thick dressing robes and towels in their arms. Like the ground floor and basement, the rooftop terrace was designed as a communal space accessible from both halves of the townhouse. There was a large bronze and glass solarium room taking up the front half of the space, while the back half held some greenery, outdoor sitting, and an electric grill for the summer on the right, and the pool and deck chairs on the left, with privacy walls on all four sides of the pool. 

Alec turned his back to strip down to his swimming trunks, probably to give Magnus some privacy, but Magnus couldn't help being mesmerised by the soulmark on his back. In just a couple of weeks, Alec's mark was already taking up his entire upper back, but in a very rough outline - just a perfectly symmetrical cross with circles forming at the end of each arm of the cross, still too soon to really figure out what it was. The books Catarina had lent him had said to expect very rapid changes in the marks only in the first few weeks though, so it might take a while before they recognised what Alec's mark was developing into. 

Magnus was still admiring the mark when Alec turned around and found him still standing there fully dressed, and Alec smiled even though his cheeks flushed a little from the attention. He made his way up the steps to the pool that was sunken into a recess inside a dark wood platform, and tested the water with his hand.

"Aren't you joining me?" he asked as he lowered himself into the pool. 

Magnus smiled back and didn't bother turning his back, eyes locked on Alec's as he slowly stripped down to his swimming trunks; carelessly discarding his long-sleeved t-shirt on a deck chair, then tugging sharply on the knot of his drawstring pants with his hips cocked slightly in a way that drew attention to his own soulmark. Unlike Alec's, his mark was concentrated on a spot, like it was intent on finishing one thing before moving on to another - rather like Alec, really. The little cluster of triangles had grown lines, dots, circles, and arrows to form a fancy geometric rendition of a constellation, and although neither Magnus nor Alec were into that sort of thing, with some research they'd figured out that it was probably Orion. He let his pants pool at his ankles, and Alec watched him come up the steps towards him with hungry eyes, but didn't make a move just yet. They'd kissed a little, held hands, and slept in the same bed, but this was slightly different. 

Magnus sank into the hot water with a genuine sigh of appreciation, resting on the underwater ledge protruding from one of the pool walls and letting the heat soothe the ache in his muscles from carrying heavy boxes all day. Alec scooted a little closer and put an arm around him, and Magnus decided that although the Lightwood residence was kind of ostentatious, he could really get used to this.

"Tired?" Alec murmured in his ear. 

"Not too bad," Magnus replied, and let out a soft moan when Alec began to nuzzle the sensitive spot behind his ear. 

"Is this ok?" 

"More than ok," Magnus responded, turning his head so he could kiss Alec properly. 

Their previous kisses had been simple, a press of lips against lips. This time, Alec coaxed his lips apart with an insistent tongue and slipped right in, delving into the heat of Magnus' mouth until Magnus could hardly breathe from how deeply Alec was kissing him. Magnus cradled the back of Alec's skull, fingers gently tangled in his hair so that he could kiss Alec back with equal fervour, and let out a low groan from deep inside his throat when Alec's thumb found the soulmark on his hip unerringly. Normally, even the lightest touch from Alec would make the skin that bore the soulmark tingle, but now Alec pressed the pad of his thumb firmly into it, and it made Magnus gasp with a jolt of pleasure he hadn't anticipated. 

"Alec?" 

Both of them froze at the voice coming from the other side of the privacy wall. There was a tense moment of silence, then someone, who Magnus realised had to be Alec's brother, cursed loudly. 

"Seriously, guys? Not in the pool!" Jace grumbled, but they heard his footsteps moving away and a door slamming shut. 

Having lived alone for most of his adult life, Magnus suddenly realised that he would have something else to get used to now that he'd moved in with the Lightwoods: living with people who were technically about to become his family. 

Alec sighed. "Sorry."

"It's ok. Lesson learnt - no more making out in the common areas," Magnus said with a breathless chuckle. 

"It's getting late. I guess we should go to bed," Alec said, holding out a hand to Magnus to help him out of the tub. 

He looked so disappointed about getting interrupted by his brother that Magnus had to try not to laugh. "You know, I think I've forgotten to put the sheets on my bed," Magnus said coyly. 

"You could just sleep in my room tonight," Alec suggested, then added quickly. "Just to sleep."

"And just for tonight," Magnus agreed. 

Four days later, when Magnus flew off to Paris for his next working trip, he still hadn't gotten around to putting the sheets on his bed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This](https://66.media.tumblr.com/7d723710d675122611e08e0c1499e33c/a3c6d359e6b801e3-13/s400x600/cde0a60721196bba2055edfa03545da4528a7783.jpg) is the constellation Ursa Major done in the style I had in mind for Magnus' soulmark.


	4. Chapter 4

"_It's a beautiful day here in Corfu, and yesterday I tweeted to all of you lovely people asking for recommendations for places to see and things to do, so I'm going to try and cover-_"

Alec frowned when he heard the lock of the front door click open, and in a moment Jace wandered into the kitchen where Alec was perched on a barstool at the kitchen counter watching one of Magnus' videos.

"Alec? Is Magnus still here? I thought he was in- oh." Jace stopped short when he saw the image on Alec's screen, where Magnus was talking into the camera while walking down a beach. Jace squinted. "That doesn't look like Paris."

"This isn't live," Alec mumbled distractedly.

Jace came close enough to read the title of the video and snorted loudly, shaking his head with a sort of horror. "Alec, this video is from three years ago. Are you going through his entire YouTube channel?" 

Alec shrugged and continued watching Magnus smiling and talking in the bright summer sun, wearing a very, very tight dark red tank top. The angle that Magnus was holding the camera at meant that his broad shoulders and well-defined arms took up most of the frame, and every time he turned to look at something behind him, Alec was treated to Magnus' side profile, including his prominent Adam's apple. Alec had been watching the video for about ten minutes now, but if someone asked him what was on this island in Greece Magnus was introducing, he would be hard-pressed to give them a coherent answer.

"You know, I'm not sure I want to find my soulmate anymore if this is what happens," Jace said. "You guys are starting to seem a bit co-dependent." 

Alec rolled his eyes and paused the video. "Did you want something?"

"Just came to pass you the collated Yelp reviews and magazine clippings on The Institute that you asked for."

"Then why did you bring a towel and clothes?"

"Ok, and I wanted to borrow that new sandalwood shampoo you bought," Jace admitted.

"That's Magnus' shampoo. And stop using the spare key to let yourself in, that's supposed to be for Mom for emergencies," Alec grumbled.

"Magnus is a cool guy, he won't mind," Jace said dismissively. 

"_I _mind, on his behalf. It's fucking rude."

"Aw, c'mon, you let me borrow your stuff all the time. That's what family is for," Jace called over his shoulder as he made his way to the bathroom. 

"For the record, I _do_ mind when you take my things without asking," Alec yelled back, scowling when Jace blithely ignored him, and turned back to his screen. 

He missed Magnus, but he didn't think it was as weird or unhealthy as Jace made it out to be. It wasn't like Alec couldn't function like a normal human being when Magnus wasn't around. They'd been mentally prepared for the physical separation, and it was good practice since Magnus travelled so often. It wasn't that different from when before Magnus had moved in, and they still had their nightly Skype chats. Alec had been pleased to find out that their soul-marks continued to change even when Magnus was away, and Magnus had told him that if he touched his soul-mark it made him feel a little less lonely, although unfortunately for Alec his mark was on his back and harder to reach. 

Alec had no prior point of reference, but most people probably missed their significant others when they were away, soulmates or not. In fact, the way that they were connected through their soul-marks even when they were physically apart made Alec feel calmer and less anxious. According to the books Catarina had lent them, soulmates who had been together for a long time would develop an extra awareness of their partner - what they were feeling or thinking, even an echo of what food they were craving or a song that had gotten stuck in their partner's head. 

Alec leaned his chin on his hand and sighed. He was supposed to be working - business at The Institute had been getting worse even though Alec and Jace were confident that the quality of the food they served hadn't changed, and Alec was supposed to try to figure out what the problem was and solve it. Alec skimmed through contents of the flash drive Jace had passed him, but after reading a dozen vaguely positive but unenthusiastic reviews, he gave up and switched back to Magnus' video. On his screen, Magnus was sitting in a speedboat popping cherries in his mouth, then the video cut to a birds-eye-view drone shot of incredibly blue waters and a beautiful green island.

"Wow, that looks pretty amazing," Jace commented as he walked back out, hair wet and smelling disconcertingly of Magnus' shampoo. "Magnus gets to go to some interesting places. Remember when Mom and Dad used to just book us trips to Club Med all over the world, and all of them looked the same whether we were in Hokkaido or the Maldives? Our holidays were boring as fuck."

"Jace, can you stop stealing Magnus' shampoo? Seriously," Alec griped.

"Ok, _fine_, jesus. Stop whining. I don't really like the smell of sandalwood anyway," Jace said. "Hey, so I noticed that the mattress on Magnus' bed is still in its plastic wrapping, so..."

"If you ask me about my sex life one more time, I'm going to punch you," Alec warned.

Jace put up his hands in surrender and made his way to the door. "Hey, you're not the only one who wishes Magnus was here. You're a nightmare when he's not around - must be your massive case of blue balls."

Alec grabbed one of the apples sitting in a basket on the counter and lobbed it at his brother, narrowly missing Jace's head only because he ducked, and Alec heard a loud hoot of laughter from Jace just before the door closed. Alec made a mental note to tell his mom to keep the spare key somewhere else. 

Alec had to admit, Jace had accidentally hit the nail on the head, though not in the way he'd assumed. Magnus had slept in Alec's bed for a few days before leaving for Paris, but they hadn't gone further than kissing and cuddling. Alec knew they'd agreed to take things slow, but some mornings they woke up in each other's arms, bodies pressed close to each other, and it was getting a lot harder for Alec - pun intended. 

Meanwhile, the Magnus on Alec's screen stuck out his tongue to show off the cherry stem that he'd tied into a knot with only his tongue. "_What can I say - I have a very talented tongue_," Magnus said, and winked at the camera.

Alec groaned in frustration and let his forehead drop to the table with a thud.

\--

It wasn't that Alec didn't understand where Magnus was coming from. They'd only known each other for two weeks, and even with their soulmate bond easing the way, there was still a lot they didn't know about each other. Besides, they'd barely started getting used to living in each other's space and they were still at the tail end of the intense emotional high of finally finding each other after all these years. Sex could complicate things - or it could bring a whole new dimension to their soulmate bond, and bring them even closer. A part of Alec was starting to wonder if the problem was _him_, that he was so inexperienced in this whole relationship business that he was messing up somehow and Magnus just didn't feel comfortable enough to take the next step with him.

Alec decided that it was probably best to ask someone he trusted for advice. He wasn't going to bother asking Jace, who was probably even worse than him, and unfortunately he couldn't ask Izzy either because she was off in Antarctica with no Internet or phone access, and she'd probably think the whole thing was a waste of time because Izzy didn't do relationships. Which left him with his mom, who also happened to be the only other person he was close to who was half of a soulmate pair - even if it might be kind of awkward asking her for relationship advice. 

While The Institute was closed for a short break in between lunch and dinner hours, Alec popped out to visit Maryse Lightwood at the small antique bookshop she had decided to buy over with her compensation package when she had been retrenched. His mom seemed to find it calming to repair and clean the fragile first editions and rare books that she'd acquired from auctions and private collectors after a lifetime of cutthroat corporate politics, and stepping into her shop always felt like walking into a cosy private library, an introvert's sanctuary in the middle of the city.

"Alec? What are you doing here?" Maryse exclaimed when she looked up and saw him.

"I brought dessert," Alec said. "I made pudding with that fruit juice caviar that you like today."

"My compliments to the chef," Maryse said fondly, kissing him on the cheek. 

She insisted that he should share it with her, but Alec didn't do much more than pick at it. After a while, Maryse smiled and put down her spoon. 

"Is this about Magnus?" she asked. "He'll be home in a few days."

"Yeah. I thought of doing something nice for him to welcome him home, but I don't know what to do," Alec said. 

"Well, what does he like? Flowers?" Maryse asked. 

Alec shook his head. Magnus liked his flowers still attached to the living plants, and preferably growing in a meadow somewhere. He liked waking up in the middle of the night to the sounds of a thunderstorm raging outside. He liked the smell of the sea, and challenging himself to do things he'd never done before. He liked making new friends and he'd told Alec that he wanted to try to visit every single country in the world at least once. Magnus dressed well and had good taste in food and wine (when he remembered to eat), but it was startling to realise that all the things Magnus truly wanted weren't really things money could buy or Alec could give him. 

"Alec, it doesn't have to be something grand or expensive to be meaningful. Just something that shows that you were thinking of him," Maryse said. 

Unfortunately, everything Alec could think of felt horribly tacky and clichéd. He'd considered getting champagne and decorating their apartment with candles, but Magnus had only been gone for a routine work trip and it would probably seem too much like Alec was just looking to get laid. But he didn't want it to be something too simple either, because the point was to show Magnus that Alec was willing to make the effort because Magnus was important to him. 

"Play to your strengths, and do something that makes you happy as well," Maryse suggested, tapping the empty pudding container. "I know you - cooking for the people you love makes you happy. So why don't you cook him dinner?" 

\--

"When you said you were taking me out to dinner, I didn't realise you meant to bring me to your own restaurant," Magnus commented as he stepped through the door gingerly.

"I wanted to cook something special for you, and I kinda needed the stuff here to make it," Alec explained. "Don't worry, I closed the restaurant for the day so we have the place to ourselves."

The Institute was all steel and glass, pale blue lights hidden in ledges high up on the walls and under panels in the floor so the place seemed to be lit by an inner glow. There wasn't a private room in The Institute so Alec had let down the plain white blinds that covered all the windows, and although the restaurant wasn't very big, the mirrored ceiling and clean design made the place seem more spacious, which probably explained why Magnus was looking a little ill-at-ease when Alec led him to a table in the middle of the restaurant - Alec hadn't realised how cold the place seemed when it was empty.

"Are you ok?" he asked Magnus worriedly. Maybe it had been a bad idea to come straight from the airport. 

"Just a little bit tired from the flight, but I'm not too tired to eat," Magnus assured him with a smile.

"I'll be right back with the first course," Alec said, and hurried off to the kitchen.

In a bid to revitalise The Institute, Alec had been trying something new with the menu, branching out into cuisines from all over the world. He'd started with Spanish cuisine first, as a nod to his mother's Spanish heritage, then Italian, since Robert Lightwood was part-Italian - which was why Alec had been in Tuscany in the first place when he'd met Magnus. While Magnus had been away, Alec had been experimenting with some Indonesian dishes, and he hoped to put some of the dishes on The Institute's menu so Magnus' heritage would be represented as well. 

Alec usually came up with the dishes together with Jace, but left Jace to handle the performance aspect of serving the dishes. This time Alec had done the taste-testing and concepts all on his own but he still wasn't sure that he had captured the flavours from Magnus' childhood exactly right, and of course he'd be doing the serving on his own. And even though he had prepared everything earlier in the day, which just left him with minimal cooking, plating, and serving -simple stuff, things he did a hundred times every day - he probably hadn't felt this nervous during his examinations in culinary school. For a moment, Alec just stood in the middle of the kitchen with his hands clenched by his sides and eyes closed. This was _his_ kitchen, and he could navigate it without looking. Alec took a deep breath, let it out, and got started.

A few minutes later, he brought out the dishes to find Magnus looking through the menu and frowning. "Are you sure everything is ok?" Alec asked.

"Yes, I'm fine, Alexander," Magnus insisted. "What have you got there?"

The first course was a set of _amuse bouche_: airy light puffed rice crackers infused with the heady taste of prawns; a fluffy cloud of curry coconut foam with a star anise floating on it; a thin slice of roasted eggplant with a sweet chilli paste; and a teapot filled with chicken broth that went with a bowl containing something that looked like a yellow flower, and when the broth was poured onto the flower, it would "bloom" into its full range of flavours as a turmeric and lemongrass Indonesian chicken soup called _soto ayam_. Alec had intended to present bite-sized dashes of the flavours that Indonesian cuisine was known for, and he knew he didn't have that flair for the dramatics that Jace used to turn something as simple as pouring hot soup from a teapot to a bowl into a performance art, so he just stuck to the basics. Magnus looked a bit wary at first, but he gamely tried everything and seemed pleasantly surprised, which gave Alec a bit more confidence for the rest of the courses.

The next dish was a cold salad based on a traditional steamed fish dish called _pepes ikan_, which was frozen in nitrogen so that it was served smoking not with heat but cold, then a deconstructed version of beef _rendang_, a sort of dry curry stew but with all the ingredients presented separately and served with a sheet of steamed rice cake, which could be used to roll up the ingredients like sushi. These didn't seem to go down so well with Magnus, judging from the carefully blank expression on his face, but the next one - a swirl of crispy noodles that came with an edible transparent seasoning packet filled with spicy _sambal_ sauce and "chopsticks" made from compressed chicken floss - got a laugh out of Magnus for the jibe Alec was making about Magnus' bad habit of eating too much instant ramen. The last three courses were desserts - a small cube of buttered toast with a dash of green ice-cream inspired by a fragrant egg-jam called _kaya_ which was commonly served at breakfast, a white chocolate and mango "meteorite" that was served on a spinning metal skewer and had to be caught only with one's mouth, and finally a bowl of brightly coloured marbles that burst in the mouth to release the juices inside - red for ginger, blue for soursop, green for lime, and yellow for pineapple. 

"Brings back memories of playing _kelereng_ as a boy," Magnus admitted with a laugh. "You really did your research."

"How was everything?" Alec asked. "And be honest with me."

Magnus smiled at him. He still looked a bit tired, but he was radiating such an air of contentment that Alec felt his anxiety finally ebb away. 

"Perfect. Absolutely perfect," Magnus replied softly, taking Alec's hands in his. "Thank you, Alexander."

Alec shook his head and grinned. "Alright, I know you're still hungry. I'll go fry up some _lo mien_ for us, and I still have some _kaya_ ice-cream in the freezer."

Magnus laughed and pecked him on the lips. "You know me so well. I'll help."

"C'mon then," Alec said, taking Magnus' hands in his to lead him to the kitchen. "I haven't eaten all day and I'm so hungry I could eat a fucking cow."


	5. Chapter 5

Magnus had to confess that his experience at The Institute wasn't what he had expected. He'd never told Alec this, but his impression of molecular gastronomy could be summarised in three words: overpriced, overrated, overhyped. It wasn't that he didn't trust Alec's cooking because Alec was a fantastic cook, but Magnus honestly didn't think anything that was served in Alec's restaurant could beat the simple and hearty dish of fried noodles that Alec often made for him. Perhaps it was a bit harsh, and Magnus could admit that he didn't actually know much about molecular gastronomy. He only had the vague idea that it involved a lot of liquid nitrogen and serving food in the form of gels and foams, and he'd assumed that the people who were willing to wait for months to get a table at The Institute mostly wanted to take photos so they could post them on Instagram and show everyone that they were so rich they could afford to be artistically hungry eating shellfish foam. It wasn't that he couldn't appreciate the flashy theatrics of serving a dish that was smoking with dry ice and exploded in your face, or the science involved in making transparent ravioli, but it all seemed like so much style and no substance. 

That in itself was a strange thing, because Alec wasn't a frivolous person. Everything about him was measured and practical, and Magnus couldn't even blame it on Jace because Alec was clearly passionate about The Institute and the work he did there.

But the meal Alec had planned especially for him had opened his eyes. He'd been a little apprehensive when he'd seen the unappetising medical-and-science-themed menu he'd picked up at his table, which had included cheesecake pills and spaghetti squeezed out from a syringe; Magnus wasn't really keen on having his food served in test tubes or on blocks of smooth cold metal that reminded him of a mortician's slab. But even though some of the dishes Alec had created for him had missed the mark a little - the deconstructed _rendang_, where eating all the same ingredients separately just hadn't tasted the same as eating them combined in one dish, and the strange experience of finding the flavours from a piping-hot steamed fish dish in a cold salad - Magnus had immediately seen the potential in the food Alec was making. 

What The Institute was selling wasn't food, although there was that too. What it was selling was an _experience_. Even before he met Alec, Magnus had considered checking out The Institute once, just to satisfy his curiosity, and if he'd been served the food from the current menu he wouldn't have bothered coming back even if they tasted good. But most of the dishes Alec had made for him had been memorable - food that he'd truly enjoyed and moved him, and something he wouldn't mind coming back to experience again someday even if he had to pay the full price, and he wasn't just saying that because his soulmate had gone all out to create a whole seven-course meal for him featuring the flavours and memories from his childhood in Indonesia. 

He knew Alec had been a bit stressed out lately because The Institute wasn't doing so well, but he thought he might have the solution to their problems. A meal at The Institute could be an invitation to play with your food, a dining experience that ideally should engage all of the senses - not just taste, smell, and texture, but a meal that "fed" you visually, aurally, and emotionally. What Alec and Jace were doing now was to surprise their customers with the strange presentation of their food, but it wasn't always a _good_ kind of surprise. All they had to do was think of how to bring that experience beyond the shock factor and turn it into an appreciation of art - food for the heart, mind, and soul.

Magnus decided that he would start with listing down all the things he had liked and disliked about the dishes and write down how each dish had made him feel so that they had something to start with, from an objective layman's point of view. He might not have graduated from culinary school like Alec and Jace, but he already been inspired with so many ideas for improving the presentation of dishes, and he'd even started watching some videos on molecular gastronomy so he could give better feedback. This was on top of his own deadlines, so he'd do it while taking a break from his own work, and he was so engrossed in one of the videos that he didn't hear Jace come in. 

"Oh, you're in," Jace said, and Magnus turned around in surprise. 

"How did you get in?" Magnus asked with a frown. 

Jace let out an explosive sneeze and wiped his nose with the edge of his sleeve. Magnus winced. 

"Spare key," Jace explained, his voice very muffled because of his blocked nose. "Alec sent me home, and I know he always has Benadryl in the medicine cabinet."

"Ok. Help yourself," Magnus said, turning back to his video.

"Hey, I know that guy. That's Heston Blumenthal. He's like, one of the pioneers of molecular gastronomy," Jace said, indicating Magnus' screen.

"Yes, I know," Magnus replied, pausing the video again. He'd never really had a proper conversation with Jace, at least not when Alec wasn't around - not because he didn't like Jace, but mostly because they didn't seem to have much in common other than Alec. Maybe it was time to make an effort to be friends with his soulmate's brother.

"Are you going to London next?" Jace asked, then added, "Listen, I know his restaurant has all those Michelin stars, but what we serve up at The Institute is way better."

"Can't beat a personalised seven-course meal," Magnus agreed with a smile.

"Damn right! Alec worked his ass off to put that together," Jace said. He blew his nose on his sleeve again. "Mind you, I think he really needed an outlet for all the extra energy. Man, you had no idea how cranky he was when you weren't around. Before he met you, when he got into moods like that I knew he'd be off to a gay bar to get himself a hook-up... not that he did that very often. I'm not saying that he's that sort of guy," Jace amended hurriedly. 

"I know about Alec's dating history, and he knows mine. We've been open about that with each other," Magnus said calmly, although he understood Alec's frustration. Except it wasn't that Magnus wasn't interested, but that they were never alone in this place, and while he wasn't opposed to having an audience, he'd really prefer if it wasn't Alec's _family_.

Jace nodded, then coughed and cleared his throat awkwardly. "So anyway, this Blumenthal guy. A lot of it is just hype, you know. Some restaurants serve crappy food but people still flock to it because it's famous." 

"Mmmm. Maybe," Magnus responded non-committally.

"Speaking of - you should do a review of The Institute on your blog," Jace suggested. "I don't know if Alec has told you, but business hasn't been so good lately. He says you've got quite a lot of followers, so maybe you can help us out, give us some free publicity."

"I'm a travel writer, not a food blogger," Magnus pointed out. "Besides, if word got out that I'd given my soulmate's restaurant a glowing review, even if I was being completely truthful about it, people would just assume that I was being biased and I'd lose all credibility."

Jace frowned. "Isn't that what you do anyway when you're sponsored? People aren't giving you free hotel rooms for you to say bad things about them."

"No, I'm always honest in my reviews, even if I'm being paid to review it," Magnus said with forced patience. "I do know have a friend who does restaurant reviews, though. If you want, I could ask Raphael if he'd like to do a review of The Institute."

"Sure, sounds good," Jace said, although he looked a little bit sceptical. "But if you don't do restaurant reviews, why are you looking at Blumenthal's videos?" 

Before Magnus could stop him, Jace picked up the notebook Magnus had been writing in. "Dude, I thought you said you didn't write food reviews. Are you putting this up on your website?" 

"No, I'm not publishing this, it's for Alec," Magnus said through gritted teeth. "Could you please give that back? I'm not ready with it."

"Wow, maybe it's a good thing you don't want to do a review for The Institute," Jace said with a frown as he read on. "I don't think you should show this to Alec either. He worked really hard on it, you know? I would have thought you'd be more supportive, you guys being soulmates and all."

"Alec asked me for my honest opinion. And it's possible to be supportive _and_ give constructive criticism," Magnus said. "Just because we're soulmates doesn't mean that we share the same brain, or we're not allowed to disagree. I think that sometimes a different perspective can be helpful for improvement."

"Oh c'mon, the only thing I've ever seen you cook is instant ramen. Leave it to the professionals," Jace scoffed without thinking, then seemed to realise that he was being rude. "No offence."

Magnus held his hand out for his book wordlessly and Jace handed it back meekly. 

"Um... I'm just going to get the Benadryl," Jace said, backing away. 

Magnus nodded curtly and turned back to his video, although he was finding it hard to concentrate on it. In a while, to his surprise, he heard the shower running and the distinctive scent of his sandalwood shampoo. That was the last straw. Scowling, he turned his computer off and grabbed his notebook, keys, phone, and wallet before getting the hell out of the house. 

\--

Magnus didn't want to disturb Catarina while she was at work, but Ragnor was a freelance accountant and stay-at-home dad, so Magnus gave him a call on the way to the subway before heading to the Fells.

"If I end up murdering my soulmate's brother, will you help me hide the body?" Magnus asked without preamble the moment he stepped in the door. 

Ragnor raised an eyebrow at him. "Madzie is taking her nap, but I'll thank you not to plan murder within earshot of my daughter."

"Am I at least allowed to drink copious amounts of alcohol while my goddaughter is asleep?" Magnus grumbled, taking care to lower his voice. 

Ragnor snorted but went off to the kitchen to pour Magnus a full glass of whiskey. "Spit it out, then. What happened?" 

"You and Catarina were lucky, in a way. Neither of you has siblings or a big extended family, so when you found each other, it was simpler," Magnus said morosely. "Alexander is wonderful, and I feel incredibly lucky that he's my soulmate. His family, on the other hand, are getting on my last nerve, and I've only been living with them for a couple of weeks."

"All of them?" 

Magnus sighed. "I do like Maryse and Luke. But Maryse is always trying to bring me food because Alec must have told her that I forget to eat sometimes when I'm concentrating on something, and sometimes she 'pops in' to help tidy up, as if her fully-grown son isn't capable of picking up after himself."

"That sounds smothering," Ragnor said in sympathy, then added, "...but _is_ he capable of picking up after himself?"

"He doesn't have much time or energy outside of work to do much, but Alec is a neat freak. I guess he gets it from his mother," Magnus said drily.

"And if the state of your apartment the last time I visited is any indication, you're very much the opposite," Ragnor observed. "Maybe she's picking up after _you_ and she's just too nice to complain that you're making a mess of her house."

Magnus' glass froze halfway to his lips. "Ah. You may have a point."

But Magnus wasn't a slob - he just happened to have a million other things he wanted to do. He _liked_ tidying up, even if he usually did it in spurts. When Maryse tidied up, it meant that Magnus often couldn't find his things because they were no longer in the places he'd last put them. Thankfully, Maryse only came around when either one or both of them were in, and even though that meant that they'd been interrupted mid-make-out a couple of times she'd never let herself in uninvited, but _Jace_...

"Maryse isn't the problem. Alec's brother has no sense of boundaries, and he's so used to Alec letting him have his way that he thinks he can behave the same around me," Magnus complained. "I haven't had the chance to meet Alec's younger sister yet, but she's due to be back in two weeks, and if she's anything like Jace..." Magnus let out a growl of frustration and downed the rest of his whiskey in one gulp.

Ragnor shook his head in commiseration. "But you don't get to choose your soulmate's family any more than you can choose your soulmate, and you can't expect him to pick you over his own family, soulmate or not."

Magnus sighed. "I know that, and I'm not asking him to. If only everything just fit, you know, like his family were my extended soulmates. Am I making any sense?" 

"Ok, I think that's enough for you," Ragnor said taking away Magnus' empty glass. "I should have known that you haven't eaten today. You should know better than to drink all that so quickly on an empty stomach, you bloody idiot. I'll make you some toast." 

While Ragnor was off making the toast, Magnus flipped through the notes that he'd written down for Alec, wondering if Jace was right that he shouldn't show it to Alec. He didn't mean to be unappreciative or ungrateful, as Jace seemed to be implying, but if you couldn't be honest with your soulmate, who could you be honest with? If a soulmate relationship was so fragile that it couldn't stand criticism or disagreement, how could it be a joining of souls? 

Just then, his phone let out a soft _ping_ with a message from Alec. 

"Ragnor, sorry about the toast. Alec wants to talk, I've got to go," Magnus said, popping his head into the kitchen. 

"Eat it on the way," Ragnor suggested, wrapping a paper napkin around the heavily-buttered toast and handing it to him. "Can you walk unassisted without falling into a ditch?" 

"_Yes_," Magnus huffed.

"If it's any consolation, perhaps Alec will find our company equally unbearable but will just have to put up with it as well," Ragnor said. 

"If my soulmate can't stand my best friends, that wouldn't make me feel better," Magnus muttered. "Give Madzie a kiss for me when she wakes up, and tell her I'm sorry I missed her."

"I damned well will _not_ tell her that you were here. All that's going to do is make her throw a tantrum because she missed you," Ragnor griped.

Magnus laughed. "_Fine_. See you on Sunday as usual, I'll see myself out."

\--

Alec had asked to meet Magnus while The Institute was closed between the lunch and dinner serving hours, insisting that he had to speak to Magnus in person to clear the air, and Magnus wondered what the hell Jace had told Alec to make him feel like it was something that couldn't wait until he got home that night.

The Lightwood family home was too far for Alec, so they'd arranged to meet at a hotel café not too far from The Institute. It was completely empty except for one waiter and the cashier, since it catered mostly to the hotel's guests and lunch hours were long over, and Alec was already there when Magnus walked in. Alec's anxiety was palpable, and he stood up immediately when he saw Magnus.

"Hello, darling," Magnus said, kissing him in greeting, and some of the tension went out of Alec's shoulders when he realised that Magnus seemed to have cooled down.

"Look, if it's something Jace said-" Magnus said at the same time that Alec said, "I'm sorry about Jace, I-"

"You first," Magnus said with a laugh.

Alec pulled out Magnus' chair for him before sitting down - not opposite him, but at the seat next to his so that they wouldn't have a table between them. The waiter came over and they both ordered coffees, and Alec waited for the waiter to be out of earshot before speaking again. 

"I'm sorry, Jace is an asshole. I told him not to use your shampoo again."

"Is that all he told you?" Magnus asked, eyebrow raised. "Do you honestly think that I'd be that upset just because of that?" 

"No, I know he keeps swiping the spare key to let himself in, and Jace is..."

"Challenging?" Magnus supplied.

Alec huffed. "That's kinder than what I was about to say. I feel like murdering him on a regular basis and he's my brother. I know he must have said something offensive or done something else to make you mad enough to leave the apartment."

"He found me writing down my thoughts on the meal you made for me, and told me that I shouldn't show it to you," Magnus said, handing over his notebook. 

He held his breath while Alec flipped through the pages eagerly, and to his relief his gut feeling was right and Alec looked excited rather than upset. 

"These are really good suggestions. I'll have to experiment with some of these to see if they work, but yeah, I think you're onto something," Alec said with a grin. "Why the hell did Jace not want you to show me this?" 

Magnus shrugged. "Because you're his brother and he's loyal to a fault?" 

Alec snorted and took Magnus' hand in his. "I don't know how I got so fucking lucky getting someone like you for my soulmate."

Magnus smiled and gave his hand a squeeze. "I could say the same about you."

"So we're good, right? Did Jace say other stupid things?" Alec asked. 

"Well..." Magnus soothed a thumb over Alec's hand absently. "Alexander, we said that we'd always be honest with each other. And I have a small confession to make."

Alec frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Your brother mentioned that you've been a little... frustrated. Because we haven't taken our physical relationship to the next step."

"Oh. Um. You said you wanted to take things slow, and I respect that," Alec said quickly. "But I did sort of wonder if I was doing anything wrong."

"No, of course not," Magnus assured him. "To be honest, I've been feeling a little frustrated too. It's just that your brother and mother have walked in on us making out a few times, and it kind of kills the mood."

"Oh. Maybe I should change the locks on the doors of our apartment to electronic locks, the kind that needs a passcode," Alec suggested. "And I'm definitely _not_ going to tell Jace the passcode."

"That sounds good," Magnus said with a grin, and dropped his voice. "But in the meantime, since we're at a hotel and you have a couple of hours before you have to get back to work, what do you say to getting a room and fooling around for a bit?" 

Alec's eyes went a little wide, but he nodded. "I'll get the bill."

\--

Alec was clearly on edge by the time they went upstairs to the room, and Magnus didn't blame him even though he was trying to play it cool. 

"Shower together?" Magnus suggested. 

"Yeah," Alec agreed, already taking his jacket off. 

They'd seen each other in underwear and swimming trunks, but not completely in the nude. Magnus whistled in appreciation to break the tension, and Alec laughed. 

"Back at you," he said with a grin. 

"You go first. I'm enjoying the view," Magnus teased, and Alec wrinkled his nose at him before heading to the bathroom. 

Alec was already briskly soaping himself when Magnus stepped into the shower stall. He handed Magnus the soap and didn't bother turning away while Magnus was washing up his eyes landing on the soul-mark on Magnus' hip. 

"Let me do your back," Magnus suggested. 

Alec turned around. His soul-mark had grown two more lines now, radiating outwards from a central point, and looked like some kind of star. All parts of a soul-mark were sensitive when touched by your soulmate, but the moment Magnus' hands brushed over the circle that had been Alec's starting soul-mark, he let out an audible gasp. 

"Fuck, Magnus," he moaned when Magnus traced the shape of it with a firmer touch, and Magnus congratulated himself on his brilliant idea to get them a hotel room so that they could be as loud as they wanted to be without being self-conscious about the sound travelling through the walls and pipes.

Magnus turned the water on and as the water began to make the soap flow down Alec's back in rivulets, he bent turned around to kiss Alec's soul-mark, and Alec pushed his ass backwards against him, his hand moving to his cock. Magnus slotted his cock into the cleft of Alec's ass, one hand on Alec's hip to hold him in place so he could rut against him and the other reaching down to help Alec jerk off, and he mouthed at Alec's soul-mark as they rocked together until Alec came into their joined hands with a bitten-off moan. 

While Alec was coming down from his orgasm, Magnus continued sliding his cock between Alec's ass cheeks and rubbing across his entrance. He was already pretty close, but as he backed off to take himself in hand, Alec turned around and pushed his back against the wall. Magnus didn't even have a chance to react before Alec went down on his knees and took his cock into his mouth, sucking hard. All it took was Alec pressing his thumb into Magnus' soul-mark to send him over the edge, and he came with cry down Alec's throat. 

They dried themselves and moved to the bed to cuddle, sated and a little sleepy. But as they settled under the covers, Alec let out a loud groan and buried his face in the crook of Magnus' neck, his arms coming up to hug Magnus tightly.

"Crap. I didn't think this through."

"What's wrong?" Magnus murmured.

"I still have to get back to The Institute," Alec mumbled into his shoulder, and he sounded so grumpy that it made Magnus smile.

"Don't you worry, darling. I'll be waiting for you at home to pick up where we left off," Magnus replied, kissing Alec on the forehead. "I'm not going anywhere."


	6. Chapter 6

Alec would never answer Jace's stupid questions about it, but sex with your soulmate was nothing like sex with any other person. He could admit that he'd been a tiny, _tiny_ bit worried that the anticipation and expectations that came with it could have turned it into a real disaster, but the spontaneity of their first time hadn't given him any time to overthink it. While Alec had been fretting over big gestures and doing things "right", Magnus had made it so simple and uncomplicated - just them, going with the flow and doing whatever made each other feel good. 

It hadn't just been about the physical, of course. Alec hadn't been with anyone that he actually knew or cared about before this, and the desire to give Magnus pleasure and the pride that came with seeing Magnus enjoying himself was a kind of satisfaction he hadn't expected. But also, when your soul-mark turned into an erogenous zone when you were with your soulmate, and your soul-mark happened to take up your entire back, sex with Magnus had been fucking phenomenal. 

Alec thought they were both better off after their rendezvous at the hotel. Maybe. Well, at least Jace seemed to have learned his lesson about respecting Magnus' boundaries and both of them seemed to be trying to put it behind them. In fact, Magnus had agreed to be their guinea pig for their food experiments and was currently perched on a chair in the kitchen of The Institute on one of the Wednesdays that The Institute was closed, tasting his way through a dozen variations of a new green curry recipe. 

"All of them taste marvellous, Alexander, and I think number three is the closest to what I've eaten in Thailand, but I'm not sure your patrons would appreciate it," Magnus said. "American Thai food is quite different from authentic Thai food."

"Yeah, that's kind of the point of the concept. Travelling the world through a meal at The Institute," Jace said. 

Alec could tell that Magnus wasn't keen on the concept, and he thought he knew why. "Jace, remember you were saying that when we were kids Mom and Dad used to book us into Club Med so every time we visited a different country, it was really all the same because it was just the inside of the club? I think this is kinda the same thing."

"I think the flavours of a place can remind you of your experience of it, but you can't remember a place you've never been to before," Magnus agreed. "In the meal that Alec made for me, the dishes that worked the best for me were the ones that were personally meaningful, like the inside joke about the instant ramen, and the ones that brought back memories, like the _kelereng_." 

"Ok, point taken," Jace conceded. "Well, we could ask patrons which places they'd been to before when they make a booking and personalise the menu."

"That could be interesting but it wouldn't be cost effective," Alec pointed out. 

"Then what do you suggest? And please don't suggest a meal that reminds you of the way you guys felt the way you first realised you were soulmates or something like that. I might go sit in a corner and cry," Jace said.

"Well, there's one place that all your patrons have definitely been to and probably have some fond memories of - New York," Magnus said with a smile.

_New York_. Alec had never lived anywhere else. New York was home, but did he have enough feelings about New York to make a meal out of it? 

"Tell me something that you think is quintessentially New York," Magnus asked them. 

"What, people ramming their elbows into your ribs on the streets and not saying 'sorry', and the crazy homeless people yelling shit at you when you walk past?" Jace said. "Or the smell of pee in the subway and hot sidewalk trash in the summer?" 

"I'm asking you to tell me a _love story_, Jace. And preferably something that you can translate into a meal people will want to eat," Magnus said wryly. "Well, I'll start. I love the diversity of the food here, even if some of it has been adjusted for the local palate. And I love the New York skyline and the art deco buildings."

"Ok, then the Naked Cowboy in Times Square, also a favourite of Alec's," Jace joked. "And one-dollar pizza, and how we try to put bacon in everything."

"I like the museums. My favourite is the Met," Alec said. "And the way Central Park looks in the fall."

"Wow, here I am talking about the smell of pee and you guys are talking about parks and museums, you're giving me a complex here," Jace grumbled.

"If we want to make art deco food sculptures or something, that's way beyond mine and Jace's skillset, though," Alec said. 

"On my flight back from Paris, I sat next to a lovely girl who was born in New York but moved to Paris with her family when she was very young. She's an artist, and she mentioned being interested in working with multimedia and unusual materials. Perhaps you could give her a try?" Magnus suggested.

Alec and Jace exchanged a look and shrugged. 

"Sure, maybe having someone new on the team will help. And speaking of, maybe Magnus should join us full-time instead of the travel thing, and help us with the concepts. Join the family business, y'know?" Jace said. 

Alec knew that thinking up concepts for The Institute probably wasn't something Magnus was interested in as a full-time job, but he hadn't expected his expression of horror either. 

"God, _no_," Magnus said vehemently. 

"Woah, ok. Just a suggestion," Jace said, holding his hands palm-up in surrender. 

"Ok, this has been fun, but I've got work to do," Magnus said, getting up from his chair. "I'll send you Clary's number. See you tonight," he told Alec, and got out of there in a hurry. 

"Uh... what did I do?" Jace asked. Alec wished he knew. 

\--

The truth was, things had been a bit weird after their romp in the hotel. Not between them, exactly, but Magnus seemed frustrated, and as far as Alec could tell, it wasn't because of work. 

When he got home, Magnus was still awake, doing research for his next trip in the study. He seemed happy to see Alec, and got up to kiss him in greeting. 

"Did you eat? Do you want me to cook?" 

"Oh, I had all that curry at The Institute, I'm fine," Magnus said a little distractedly as he shut his computer down.

"Magnus, are you sure everything ok?" Alec insisted. 

"Better now that you're here," Magnus replied easily. 

The strange vibe eased a little as they got ready for bed, and by the time they'd gone through their usual nightly ritual of charting their soul-mark, things felt comfortable enough for Alec to initiate a proper kiss, but Magnus backed off before they could really get into it. 

"What's wrong?" Alec asked in confusion. 

"It's not that I don't want to, but you know how we get," Magnus said with an awkward chuckle. 

"You think my mom and Jace will be able to hear us?" Alec asked, catching on. 

"I _know_ they'll be able to hear us. Sound travels in these old houses, and the walls are thinner than you think. I can hear your mom singing when she cooks and Jace's TV."

"Really?" Alec hadn't really noticed, but then again he'd grown up surrounded by the sounds of his family. "Well, we can try to be quiet. I mean, how else are we ever going to have sex? Book a hotel room every time we're in the mood?" 

"If you want, tomorrow I could wait for you at that hotel we went to the last time," Magnus suggested, and Alec thought he was only half joking.

"Oh c'mon, Magnus. You can't be serious," Alec said, starting to feel a little exasperated. "I've changed the locks like you wanted and talked to my mom and Jace about not coming into the apartment unless it's really necessary. It's been a _month_ and you're still not used to living with my family?" 

"A month isn't that long."

"But they're my _family_."

"It isn't like flipping on a switch, Alexander. These things take time," Magnus said, a slight edge in his voice now. 

"So how long is it going to take?" 

"I don't know. How would I know?" Magnus snapped, then sighed. "Alexander, you have to understand that I've been living alone since I was old enough to get out of the foster system. I've had roommates, but those were either friends I'd chosen to share a place with or complete strangers that I didn't have to speak to if I didn't want to, and I've never stayed in the same place for more than a couple of years. Your family is different. They're important to me too, and I confess it makes me feel like I'm treading on eggshells sometimes."

Alec swallowed hard. He could understand where Magnus was coming from; he kind of felt the same about Magnus' friends, but he didn't have much time to interact with them and get to know them to even know if he could get along with them. "Ok, then tell me how to fix it."

"There's nothing that needs fixing, Alexander. I just need some time, and maybe some space," Magnus replied. 

"Space," Alec repeated dully. "From me too?"

Magnus shook his head, smiling softly, and took Alec's hand. "Are you upset about the way I reacted when Jace suggested that I should join you at The Institute? That's not what I meant when I said 'no' - I'm happy to support your dreams, and I wouldn't say no to spending more time with you, but just because we're soulmates doesn't mean that we need to live in each other's pockets. I think it's healthy for us to each have some personal space."

"No, I get that. You enjoy your work," Alec replied, although the small nagging voice that told him that Magnus would always be off chasing the experiences that the world could give him, was also starting to say that maybe Alec wasn't enough even though he was Magnus' soulmate. 

"We'll figure it out," Magnus said soothingly, holding him a little tighter. "After all, we're soulmates."

\--

They didn't get a hotel room the next day, or the day after that... or the next few days after that, really, until it was time for Magnus to leave for his next trip. They'd both been busy, especially since Izzy was coming home and there had been a last minute mix-up with Magnus' flight and hotel bookings, but to be honest Alec just couldn't bring himself to go to a hotel just for sex. Magnus didn't push the issue but he wouldn't budge on his stance either, so they were at an impasse, and Alec hated that it felt like Magnus had gone off while they were in the middle of a disagreement. 

The artist Magnus had suggested hadn't been available for an interview until Magnus had flown off, but Magnus' recommendation had been sound. Clary Fray seemed enthusiastic about the work they did at The Institute and had an impressive portfolio, but Alec hadn't liked the way Jace had immediately started pulling out all the stops to flirt with her. 

"What are you doing?" Alec hissed as Clary left the room.

"I know this is not your area, but she's really cute," Jace replied. 

Alec narrowed his eyes at his brother. "We already said we're hiring her and you're not allowed to hook up with the staff, that's the rule."

"And what if I asked her out properly?" Jace asked. 

"Wait, seriously?" 

"Her soul-mark is on her neck, it's pretty obvious that she hasn't found her soulmate yet. Maybe we two sad soulmate-less schmucks will work out," Jace said with a shrug. "She seemed interested in me, right?" 

"How the fuck should I know? You're asking the wrong guy," Alec muttered. "You should ask Izzy."

"Izzy is good at this stuff," Jace agreed, brightening up. "I'm _so_ glad that she's coming home today."

Alec nodded. "Speaking of which, we should go, we've got to go pick Izzy up at the airport."

Alec had missed his baby sister. They'd had zero contact with her for half a year while she was off in Antarctica being a brilliant geologist, and he couldn't wait for her to be home even though he wished Magnus was around to meet her.

When she finally got through the airport customs, Izzy made a beeline for them and pulled him, Jace, and Maryse into a fierce hug, and for a while, Alec put his troubles with Magnus out of his mind and concentrated on having his sister back. She was talking at a million miles per hour, excited to finally meet Luke and catch up with her family, but just as she turned to Alec, his phone started ringing. 

"Magnus?" he said in surprise when he saw who it was. Magnus was in Laos, on the other side of the world, and it was probably two or three in the morning where he was at. 

"_Is your sister home yet? I thought I'd say 'hi' before I went to bed_," Magnus said, but Alec suspected he'd actually set an alarm so he could wake up just to FaceTime Izzy. 

He handed over the phone to Izzy, and was pleasantly surprised when Izzy seemed to hit it off with Magnus almost instantly. 

"I can't wait to meet you in person!" Izzy told Magnus. "I will school you personally in the Art of War."

"What war?" Alec demanded.

"Against you two, of course," Izzy replied. To Magnus, she said, "I know your pain. But the first rule - and the most important rule - is to become your enemy."

"_Ah. If you can't beat them, join them?_" Magnus asked with a laugh.

"Only way to deal with these two assholes," Izzy agreed.

"Hey! Who are you calling asshole?" Jace protested. "You stole my phone and uploaded all my worst selfies to Instagram and superglued my shampoo bottle shut!"

"Then you shouldn't have put pink hair dye in my conditioner and used up all my expensive Korean face masks," Izzy shot back. 

"That was _three_ _years_ ago-" Jace began to protest. 

Alec knew that when Jace and Izzy started squabbling there was no end to it, so he took over the phone from Izzy. "Sorry about them. You go to sleep, you've got a long day ahead of you."

He'd seen the itinerary. Magnus was going off to some treetop hotel in the middle of a jungle the next day, somewhere completely off the grid with no electricity, internet, or cell reception for three days, and Magnus would have to spend most of tomorrow hiking and doing god-knows-what to get there. 

"I don't mind," Magnus said, laughing. He was obviously exhausted and jetlagged but he'd wanted to make the effort to reach out to Izzy, and he hadn't even put on any make-up or styled his hair, a thing Magnus never did around people he didn't know. Alec's heart felt too full.

"I love you," Alec said without thinking. They hadn't said that to each other yet, and this wasn't the way he'd have planned to say it, but Magnus' face lit up. 

"I love you too, Alexander. See you soon," Magnus said softly, and after Alec cut the call even Jace's jibes couldn't take away the floaty feeling that had filled his chest. For the first time in days, Alec felt completely at ease; Magnus was right, they were soulmates, and they would work this out.

"I like him. I always knew you had good taste," Izzy said with a grin.

"Let's go home, you must be tired," Maryse said, but to their surprise, Izzy shook her head.

"Actually, I've booked a room at a hotel," Izzy said with a small smile. She took out her phone and sent off a message, then took a deep breath before turning to face Maryse properly. "Mom, there's someone I'd like you to meet."

Someone came a little closer to their little group, a girl that even Alec could appreciate was quite pretty, and smiled at them a little shyly when Izzy took her hand.

"Mom, this is my fiancée, Maia," Izzy said. "She's a marine biologist at the same camp as me. I proposed to her before we came back to New York."

"She's your soulmate?" Maryse asked in confusion - Izzy's mark was pretty obvious, a small half-circle on her arm, but it remained unchanged. 

"She's not my soulmate, but neither of us believe in that sort of thing," Izzy replied airily. 

Sure enough, there was a diamond winking on one of Maia's fingers when she shook hands with all of them, but something strange happened when Maia shook hands with Jace; Jace flinched like he had just touched a livewire when his hand made contact with Maia's, and Maia's eyes went wide. They dropped each other's hands immediately, and Jace took a few steps back. Izzy had been deep in conversation with Maryse and Luke and hadn't noticed, and Alec didn't want to make a big fuss about it, but he drew Jace aside when they'd said goodbye to Izzy and Maia. 

"What the hell was that with Maia?" he asked. 

"What? Nothing. Static electricity," Jace insisted, and refused to say anything more. 

\--

Jace was very quiet the next day, going about his duties at The Institute with a sort of stoic determination that was more Alec's style, but whenever Alec tried to ask him what was wrong, Jace would just snap at him to leave him alone. Alec had a sinking feeling that he knew what was wrong; Jace's soul-mark was a curved line at the back of his neck, and he'd taken to wearing his chef's coat in the sweltering heat of the kitchen when he usually left it off unless he had to go out to the dining area, so that his soul-mark was now hidden by his collar. Only Clary Fray had dared to go anywhere near Jace when he was in such a foul mood, probably because she didn't know Jace well enough to be afraid of his temper, but even though she'd managed to tease a small smile out of him once or twice, Alec was braced for the inevitable explosion. 

He hadn't expected it to go the way it did. 

Izzy had dropped by without Maia to hang out with them, trying to help in the kitchen, but Alec had sent her out - not because she was getting in the way, but mostly because she could cost them their operating license. Instead, she'd been tasked with helping Clary put together some mock-ups of the visual concepts she wanted to achieve with her dishes, but by the time they were done with the lunch rush hour, they found that Izzy had gone off without saying goodbye. 

Alec hadn't thought too much about it, because Izzy did that a lot. He'd gone to his brother's apartment with a six-pack of Jace's favourite beer instead, just to sit quietly and watch some dumb reality programme with him, and hadn't even mentioned the fact that Jace was wearing a fucking collared shirt at home. Then Alec had received a message from Izzy, asking him to open the back door for her quietly so that it wouldn't wake Maryse, and he and Jace found Izzy standing outside in tears.

Alec pulled her into his arms immediately. "Iz, what happened?"

Instead of answering him, Izzy tugged her jacket off her shoulders to reveal her soul-mark - now a complete circle instead of a half-circle.

"I found my soulmate," Izzy choked out. "It's Clary Fray." 


	7. Chapter 7

Magnus had to get an extra-strong coffee the next morning, but it was worth it. He'd managed to catch Alec briefly when he woke up, but Alec had been having dinner with his family so Magnus hadn't been able to do more than meet Isabelle's surprise fiancée Maia briefly through FaceTime and tell Alec "I love you" one more time before he really had to get going. 

He had felt terrible about leaving without resolving his argument with Alec, but it couldn't be helped - hotel bookings and deadlines waited for no man. The thing was, Magnus was all for trying to find a compromise, but some things he refused to put up with even for Alec's sake. He didn't think it was unreasonable for him to feel uncomfortable with the constant close proximity to Alec's family. In a place like New York City, people were everywhere and you never really got to be alone; Magnus had lived in apartments where he had definitely found out way too much about his neighbours' sex lives and vice versa, but he wasn't asking for complete privacy, just a bit of distance. Even the indoor private swimming pool and rooftop jacuzzi weren't worth the mental and emotional stress - or perhaps the extravagance of the Lightwood House only added to his discomfort because he wasn't paying any rent and it made him feel like he was freeloading. 

He had been surprised by Alec's abrupt declaration of love, but he'd definitely needed it. He knew _logically_ that they were just having a tiff but his heart had needed the reassurance that their feelings and commitment to each other remained strong. 

So it was with a much lighter heart that Magnus went to catch his local transfer flight to Pakse, a bustling city in southern Laos, where a bus and guide was waiting to bring guests to a village called Ban Nong Louang, the next closest human dwelling to their unusual hotel. There were fifteen guests altogether from all over the world, consisting of one family of four with their preteen children, a few soulmate pairs, one group of friends, and a handful of people travelling solo. Magnus had read that there was some sort of waterfall-powered generator at the hotel, but he wasn't sure how reliable that was going to be, so his bag was full of powerbanks and spare battery packs, and he'd have to use his phone and laptop sparingly. 

After a two-hour bus ride, he and the other tourists were fitted with safety harnesses and helmets and briefed on the correct use of the equipment before they set off on a four-and-a-half-kilometre trek down muddy dirt paths through the forest, precarious suspension bridges, and across rain-swollen rivers to the first zipline station. They stopped for a late lunch that had been laid out for them on banana leaves right on the forest floor - rice, hard-boiled eggs, vegetables, and grilled fish from the Mekong River covered in spices to mask the earthy taste of its flesh - before clambering up to a rickety wooden platform a hundred metres up to cross their first zipline.

It took Magnus only two ziplines to get the hang of it - making sure not to throw himself onto the mercy of the taut wire strung between the platforms too hard so that he didn't crash painfully into the tree on the other end, but still jumping with enough energy to make sure he had enough momentum to carry him across few hundred metres of wire. As he flew high above the treetops and across breathtaking views of green valleys and cascading waterfalls, Magnus turned to the camera he was holding in one hand, unaccountably emotional. He usually didn't do personal shout-outs in his videos, but he couldn't help himself.

"I wish you were here with me, Alexander," he told the camera, but the rushing wind snatched the words from his lips.

They managed to cross the tenth zipline before it got completely dark, and gathered at the hotel's service centre at the foot of a waterfall that they couldn't see even though they could hear it and feel its cooling spray. Besides the restaurant and kitchen, this service centre also held communal bathing areas because there were no bathrooms in the rooms nestled high up in the canopy, so they ate dinner and bathed before heading up to their rooms. The rooms were housed in six separate clusters, and as Magnus was walking along the wooden bridges that led to his cluster, one of the girls travelling by herself whom he had helped a little on the way to the hotel came up to him. 

"Hey. Thanks for holding my hand earlier when we were crossing that suspension bridge," she said. 

"Oh, you're very welcome. It was swaying pretty hard in the middle, I appreciated having your hand to hold as well," Magnus replied with a laugh. 

"So... No television, no handphone, no internet. I thought maybe since you're travelling alone as well, we could find some other ways to amuse ourselves tonight," she said meaningfully. 

_Ah._ Magnus cleared his throat and smiled politely at her to soften the blow of the rejection. "I'm flattered, but I've found my soulmate."

"Oh!" 

She gave him an obvious once-over, looking for his soul-mark. It was actually pretty chilly at night so he was currently wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt, but Magnus had been wearing a singlet and hiking shorts on the way here, and he supposed she'd just assumed he hadn't found his soulmate because he was alone and his mark had still been hidden despite the amount of skin he'd been showing - some people started hiding their marks if they hadn't found their soulmate after a certain age. He didn't have to, but Magnus lifted up his shirt a little to show her soul-mark, where another little constellation was starting to form just above the hem of his exercise tights. 

"Lucky woman," she said with a forced smile. "Why isn't she here with you?" She sounded almost offended on behalf of his soulmate. 

"I'm a travel writer, so this is a business trip, not a holiday. Unfortunately, my soulmate couldn't get away from his work to join me," Magnus explained with real regret.

"Oh, I see," she said, and was clearly relieved when they had to part to go to their separate rooms.

Once he got back to his room, Magnus charged all his equipment in preparation for the next day and made sure they were safely packed in plastic bags in case it rained in the night, but he still had plenty of time to kill. The walls of the treehouse that served as his room only came up to his waist and provided no shelter against the chilly winds up here in the mountains, so he put on a jacket. His body ached from the physical exertion of the trip here but his mind was wide awake, and it felt so odd not being able to call Alec or even do some video-editing to take his mind off the fact that Alec wasn't here with him. After some thought, he took out his phone and turned on the video recording app.

"We didn't get to do our nightly check-in today, so I'm just going to take a video every night that I'm here and show them to you when I get home," he told the camera, and lifted his shirt so he could get a shot of his soul-mark. "There's a new line here. I think we're right about my mark being an actual star chart, it doesn't really mean anything to either of us to have Taurus turning up next..." 

After he'd finished recording the short video for Alec, he dug his notebook out of his luggage to jot down some thoughts about the trip so far. He'd typed up the notes on the meal for Alec but the physical notes were still in here, as well as notes from previous trips, the rough notes for a sci-fi fantasy novel and a romance novel set in a dystopian future that he'd once thought he might try to write. He hadn't always wanted to be a travel writer. He'd wanted to study chemistry in college but the desire to be financially independent so he could get out of the foster system more quickly had won out, so after high school, he'd opted for practical photography classes at a community college and an internship with the local newspaper and hadn't looked back. He loved his job, but with Alec's insane work schedule, if they wanted to settle down - in a place of their own and possibly with children - maybe it was time to dust off some old dreams that he'd given up along the way and do something that allowed him to spend more time in New York. 

Magnus flipped through his old notes, shaking his head and snorting at some things and smiling a little at parts. His old novel ideas needed work, but they weren't that bad if he said so himself. After all, as Alec had noticed on the first night they'd been in San Gimignano, Magnus was a pretty good storyteller. He turned to a fresh page and started writing. 

\--

At the end of Magnus' three-day stay at the treetop Hotel, he had written a full outline of a new novel idea as well as the first chapter, and he couldn't wait to show it to Alec. He would miss the fresh mountain air and waking up to having a waterfall right outside his window, but maybe because he'd been completely deprived of all contact with Alec, he missed Alec with an intensity that was stronger than anything he'd ever experienced, almost like he was feeling Alec's share of the emotions as well. 

Getting out of the hotel had involved crossing a rope bridge over a roaring river while watching rainbows arcing off the surface, then hiking uphill through bamboo forests and climbing straight up a vertical rock cliff aided only by rusting steel brackets to the top of the waterfall where a bus was waiting to take them back to the airport. By the end of it, Magnus was exhausted and breathless from the climb and from the view, and wishing so hard that Alec was here to see it with him, and although Magnus usually made it a point never to visit the same place twice, maybe he would make an exception for this place, mostly because experiencing it with Alec would make it different. 

Unfortunately, he'd been saving up his battery packs for his cameras, so his laptop and phone batteries were almost flat. As he got a little nearer to civilisation, the moment he turned his phone on a flood of messages and other notifications came in and his phone promptly died. It didn't really matter, Magnus intended to take the first flight out so that he could get back to Alec as soon as possible anyway. He headed straight to the airport and managed to change his flight, even though it meant he had to make do with a wipe-down in the toilet until he got a chance to take a shower during the stopover at Taiwan. 

When he finally got his phone working again when he was in Taiwan, he finally had a chance to look through his notifications. He had missed a few emails and calls from potential clients and one missed call from Alec from a few days ago, possibly because Alec had been trying his luck on the off chance that Magnus did have cell reception after all. Nothing seemed too urgent and he wanted to surprise Alec since was coming back almost a full day earlier, so he didn't call Alec back.

It was just past four in the afternoon when Magnus reached the Lightwood house. It would be a while yet before Alec got home from The Institute, which would give Magnus some time to prepare his little surprise and maybe even give him some time to steal forty winks to recover from his 25-hour flight. But when he let himself into the apartment, he was surprised to find Alec sitting alone at the kitchen counter nursing a whiskey. He looked up with a frown when he heard the footsteps in the hallway but managed a small smile when he saw Magnus. 

"I thought you were Jace," he said. 

Magnus hadn't exactly been expecting Alec to sprint across the room towards him in slow-motion, but he'd thought that Alec would at least get off his barstool to greet him. "Alexander, what's wrong? Why are you home and why are you drinking alone?" 

Alec shook his head and took a gulp from his glass. "I closed The Institute for a couple of days since none of us are in the right state of mind to be working. It's been a really fucked-up couple of days."

Magnus put an arm around Alec, but Alec remained a little stiff and pulled away almost immediately. 

"What happened?" Magnus asked. 

"Turns out, Izzy's new fiancée is Jace's soulmate, and that artist you recommended to us is Izzy's soulmate, so it's all messed up now."

"Oh dear," Magnus murmured in sympathy. "How are they doing?" 

"There was a lot of shouting and crying. Maia took off, said she needs some time to process everything. Clary's number has been disconnected. Izzy is staying at the hotel with Mom, and Jace has fucked off to god-knows-where and isn't answering my calls," Alec said. He drained his glass of whisky, then suddenly added, "In fact, nobody's been answering my calls. Including you."

"I wasn't avoiding your calls on purpose," Magnus pointed out. 

"Yeah, I know that," Alec mumbled. "But it wouldn't have been a problem at all if you weren't always going off to jungles in the middle of nowhere."

Magnus frowned. "Alexander, this is the first time I've been completely uncontactable."

Alec sighed and ran a hand over his face, then flashed Magnus a forced smile. "You're right, that wasn't fair. It's nothing."

Magnus crossed his arms. "No, it's obviously not 'nothing'. Be honest with me." 

"I missed you," Alec finally admitted. "I needed you _here_ \- not just your voice on the phone or your face through a screen, or a vague sense of you through the soul-mark. My family was falling into pieces around me, but you weren't here."

That did make Magnus feel a little guilty, but it wasn't like anyone could have anticipated that Alec's siblings' lives would suddenly become more complicated than they'd bargained for. "I'm sorry, Alexander. I'll admit that the timing of this trip perhaps wasn't the most ideal, but sometimes things go wrong. I can't put my life on hold in case of some nebulous _something_ that might happen."

"I'm not asking you to put your life on hold! I'm asking you to be there for me when I need you - is that too much to ask?" Alec snapped.

"Of course I want to be there for you as much as possible, but we're soulmates, Alexander, not conjoined twins," Magnus snapped back. 

"Yeah, there it is again. You need your space, you hate living here, you don't want to work with me at The Institute, and you can't stand my family. Magnus, do you even want this?" Alec blurted out.

As if Magnus hadn't been trying his best to get along with Alec's family when Alec barely tried to get to know Magnus' friends, as if Magnus hadn't spent hours in The Institute's kitchen and back in the apartment with Alec brainstorming concepts for dishes, as if Magnus was expected to change everything about the way he lived while Alec just went on as he'd always done, living under the same roof as his family and keeping the same schedule he'd kept to for years. Perhaps he shouldn't have held it against Alec since he was obviously stressed out and a bit drunk, but Magnus hadn't rushed back from halfway around the world to be accused of not trying hard enough.

"I'm going to stay with Catarina until you've sobered up," Magnus said flatly. "And maybe while you're at it, you can ask yourself if those are just things that _you_ want." 

He picked up the bags he'd left in the hallway and left without a backward glance, but Magnus regretted walking out the moment he reached the sidewalk. He knew he had likely made things worse, but he refused to go back up there to what was essentially _Alec's_ house, not his, so that they could say more hurtful things to each other while they were both tired and upset. With stubborn determination, Magnus stuck out his hand to flag down a cab and got out of there before Alec could come out after him. 


	8. Chapter 8

Nothing sobered you up as quickly as your soulmate walking out on you.

Alec rushed out to the sidewalk even though he knew that Magnus would be gone by the time he hit the pavement, and was just in time to see the taxi zoom off. He'd felt the sick jolt of Magnus' hurt in counterpoint to his own peaking frustration and guilt for accusing Magnus of not caring, and he could still feel it like a dull ache in his chest as he stood there, wanting to go after Magnus but knowing that it was pointless to give chase if Magnus didn't want to stay. He messaged Catarina asking her to please let him know when Magnus had arrived safely hoping that since he'd been talking to her lately regarding his siblings' problems she would be more kindly disposed towards him, then trudged back upstairs, started the coffee machine, and buried his head in his hands.

Fuck. He'd really messed up. He couldn't even get this thing with Magnus right and they were _soulmates_, supposedly the perfect match for each other. 

Sitting in the dark kitchen listening to the whirring of the coffee machine, Alec could hear the TV from the neighbours next door, and a door slamming somewhere. Now that he was all alone in the building, without the sounds of his family surrounding him, Alec had to admit that Magnus did have a point about the walls being too thin, and if Alec had been in his place he would have found it embarrassing to have Magnus' loved ones hearing what they were up to as well. But what about the rest of it? Was he really being unreasonable for wanting Magnus to be there for him when things got rough? Why wasn't he allowed to feel frustrated that he was being made to choose between Magnus and his family?

He'd just poured himself a cup of coffee when he heard a knock on the door. He knew it wasn't Magnus but he'd hoped anyway, and to his disappointment and surprise it was Jace. 

"Beer?" Jace asked, holding up a six-pack. 

Alec shook his head and went back to the kitchen, leaving his brother to follow behind him. He'd only just sat down when there was another knock on the door, and this time it turned out to be Izzy. 

"Jace is here," he warned her. His siblings had been fighting for days, and Alec wasn't in the mood to deal with them right now, but he left the door open so she could come in if she still wanted to.

Jace was on the couch drinking his beer, so Izzy followed Alec to the kitchen counter, and for a while all three siblings sat in tense silence, stewing in their own individual misery.

"Where's Mom?" Alec finally asked.

"At Luke's," Izzy replied.

Right. Because most other soulmate couples gravitated towards each other for comfort when shit hit the fan. Alec took another gulp of his scalding coffee and briefly considered going back to whiskey.

"Hey Alec, isn't Magnus supposed to be back tomorrow?" Jace asked.

"He's already back," Alec said dully. Magnus was back almost a full day earlier, which meant that he'd changed his flights and rushed back, maybe because he'd felt Alec's unhappiness through the bond, and Alec hadn't even shown his appreciation. "God. I fucked up."

"Hey, you guys are soulmates. You'll work it out," Jace said, moving towards the kitchen.

"People keep saying that - 'you're soulmates', as if that's supposed to magically make everything better," Alec mumbled.

"It doesn't, that's what I've been saying. Soulmate matching makes no scientific sense. It can indicate that two people may be compatible in some way at the point of birth, but that's it. It doesn't take into account how later experiences shape a person, or social and educational differences," Izzy said, already gearing up for her usual lecture, which was the last thing Alec needed right now.

It made Alec think of what Magnus had told him on the first night in the hotel in San Gimignano, that he believed that soulmates found each other at exactly the right moment in their lives. It didn't seem to be the case for Izzy and Jace unless the "right moment" was the point in time that caused maximum chaos for everyone. 

"Iz, do you seriously want to do this right now?" Jace hissed. 

"Sorry," Izzy said a little guiltily, but Alec could tell she wasn't going to let go of her argument so easily. "I'm not saying that soulmate relationships _don't_ work, of course, but-"

"You've got a thing against soulmate relationships, always have, and even if there was solid evidence right in front of you that soulmate relationships are better than normal relationships, you wouldn't believe it because you don't want to," Jace said accusingly. "I mean, look at Mom and Luke. And Alec and Magnus are pretty happy most of the time... I think. Right?"

Alec hesitated, then nodded. He'd thought so, too, even with their little disagreements. This was the first time it had escalated into a full fight, and even then the idea of giving Magnus up or that they couldn't fix their relationship somehow had never crossed his mind.

"Look, I know you think I'm being selfish for wanting to keep my relationship with Maia even though I know that she's your soulmate, and you think I'm ruining Clary's life as well with my choice. But I've been with Maia for a while now, and we've got a good thing going. I don't want to give that up just to take a gamble on a possible relationship with Clary, don't you see that?" Izzy pleaded. 

"But being with Clary might be better for you!" Jace pointed out. 

"What kind of horrible person do you think I am to just drop Maia because my soulmate has turned up out of the blue?" Izzy exclaimed.

Jace looked a bit mollified at that. "Wasn't saying that."

Izzy crossed her arms. "Besides, you do know the statistics, right? Ten percent of soulmate relationships don't work out. There was a scientist in the same camp as me and Maia, and he was sleeping around even though he had a soulmate, and when someone confronted him about it he just laughed and said that it didn't matter because his soulmate was stuck with him."

Jace and Alec both made sounds of disgust at that. 

"I hope you kicked him in the balls," Jace said. "But that's an extreme case. None of us are going to be massive assholes."

"I think I'm the massive asshole in my relationship with Magnus," Alec muttered. Both his siblings began to protest, but Alec shook his head. "I must be doing something wrong." That's why Magnus never seemed to be bothered by the time he spent away from Alec and it was so easy for Magnus to just... leave.

"He's probably just overwhelmed - that's why I got a hotel room with Maia instead of bringing her home. You have no idea how much you and Jace can be together. Maybe you just need some to spend some time together, just the two of you. A holiday or something," Izzy suggested.

"Yeah, that's actually a good idea. Everything will be fine at The Institute, I can handle it. Remember when we started doing this and you said the beauty of molecular gastronomy is that the instructions are so precise and clear that even Izzy couldn't mess it up?" Jace said, earning himself a smack from Izzy.

Alec's gaze lighted on the sparkly blue fridge in the kitchen, about a third of its surface covered with magnets. Alec had suggested going with Magnus on his travels once, but with everything going on with his family and at The Institute, and the way Magnus always wanted his own space, he hadn't dared to bring it up again. Maybe despite everything they'd said about taking things slow and getting to know each other, Alec had still gotten swept up in all of it - finding Magnus after so long, moving in together, and it being his first proper relationship - that they didn't know each other that well after all. 

Alec's phone went off with a ping and he reached for it, thinking it was Catarina. Instead, an image of Magnus greeted him - a video, in fact, of Magnus zooming across a zipline over the top of a jungle, and even though the sound of the wind was too loud of Alec to hear what he was saying, he could read Magnus' lips forming his name and it made his breath catch in his throat. Magnus turned the camera to the waterfall and the sunset, then the image cut to Magnus in a dark room with his hair still damp, smiling at the camera and saying, "_We didn't get to do our nightly check-in today, so I'm just going to take a video every night that I'm here.._."

Magnus had made a personal video log for him? For all the days that he'd been away?

"I think that's our cue to leave," Jace said, exchanging a small smile with Izzy. "And by the way, bro - Magnus was the one who messaged me telling me that you two had a fight and he thought that you shouldn't be alone."

Alec heard his siblings arguing as they left, though in slightly less vicious tones than he'd been hearing from them of late, but most of his attention was on the video Magnus had sent him. It was a bit like a diary, Magnus telling him about the things he'd seen that day and about the novel he was writing, and sometimes just Magnus thinking aloud, and at the end of it Alec felt both better and worse - better because Magnus had obviously missed him, and worse because he really didn't deserve Magnus. 

When the was almost at the end of the video, Alec heard the front door open. He wiped his tears away with the heels of his palms and got to his feet, taking a few steps forward before holding himself back, unsure if Magnus was still angry with him. 

"I'll confess that I sent you that video to soften you up," Magnus joked as he walked in, but his expression softened when he saw Alec, eyes red from crying and sniffling a bit. "Oh, Alexander." In a few quick steps he crossed the room and was holding Alec in his arms.

Alec hugged him back tightly, face buried in Magnus' shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm an idiot."

Magnus chuckled, his voice also a little choked up. "Ragnor spent the whole time raging at me and calling me a bloody-minded fool, so I guess that makes two of us."

"No, you were right, I've only been thinking about myself," Alec said, holding Magnus a little tighter. "You've never complained about the crazy hours I put in at The Institute. And I said all that stuff about you not caring even though you came back earlier, and I know my family is a lot sometimes, and-"

Magnus shushed him gently. "I haven't been fair to you either. I got defensive about it but I have been thinking about travelling less and spending more time in New York." 

Alec shook his head. "No, it has to be both of us making the changes, not just you accommodating me all the time. Were you serious about wanting me to come along with you on your trips? It's just that you said it in your video, but I wasn't sure..."

"Of course. Why wouldn't I?" Magnus asked, smiling. 

Alec shrugged. "I assumed you liked travelling alone. But once the new menu concept is settled I could hand over more stuff to Jace, y'know, maybe take a few months off to travel with you."

"I'd like that very much," Magnus said, his smile growing wider. "Catarina tells me you've been talking to her lately, and I think she's right to say that you're not someone who makes friends easily."

"I suppose," Alec agreed. "I like Catarina though, and I think we get along?"

"But you're not the sort of person who'll call a friend up for idle chit-chat. Even when you talk to Jace, most of the time it's about The Institute," Magnus said with a laugh. "We just have different ways of relying on the people around us. You're close to your family, and that's a very lovely thing."

"You're my family too," Alec mumbled.

"And I walked away from you," Magnus said quietly. "I could feel how much it hurt you when I did that, but I kept walking anyway because of my own pride. I'm sorry, Alexander."

"It's not your fault," Alec insisted, eyes squeezed shut. "I'll do better next time."

"_We'll_ do better next time," Magnus promised.

Magnus coaxed him to turn his head and kissed him in apology. Alec let out a little sigh of contentment and kissed him back, then kissed him again once more for good measure.

Magnus smiled against his lips. "You know, I'd actually planned to give you a special surprise today when I got home."

"Surprise me how?"

"I thought I'd gag myself and tie myself up, a present all wrapped up in a bow for your personal pleasure," Magnus whispered in his ear. 

Alec groaned and dropped his head. "Magnus, don't tease me. You were right about the walls being too thin and I'm not sober enough to drive us to a hotel." As if to prove his point, they heard Izzy's laughter from somewhere downstairs, probably the kitchen. 

"That's what taxis are for," Magnus said. 

They met each other's eyes for a beat and grinned. 

They sneaked out of the house as quietly as they could so Jace and Izzy wouldn't see them, and were giggling before they even got on the taxi, high on the absurdity of having to get a hotel room just to have sex and the relief from making up with each other. They stole kisses on the way, trying their best to keep their hands to themselves and not give the taxi driver an eyeful, but Alec had Magnus pinned against the door the moment they were in the privacy of the hotel room. 

Magnus tilted his head back to give Alec more room to kiss down his jawline, his hands already working at Alec's belt, and he moaned when Alec's roaming hands squeezed his ass. 

"Bed?" he murmured. 

"All the way over there? That's too far," Alec joked, nipping the skin at Magnus' pulse point, and Magnus let out a breathless laugh. 

"Let's get to the bed and I'll make it worth your while."

Alec relented and let go of Magnus long enough for them to get rid of each other's clothes, and Magnus pushed him back lightly until Alec was sprawled on the bed. 

"I figured the best way to keep quiet is to keep both our mouths occupied, don't you think?" Magnus asked with a grin and straddled Alec's face, knees on either side of his shoulders. 

Magnus' cock was hanging right above him, but Alec pulled his hips down so that he could kiss Magnus' soul-mark instead, and Magnus hummed in appreciation before gripping the base of Alec's cock firmly, giving the sensitive head little kitten licks that made Alec's toes curl. Alec moaned and took Magnus' cock in hand to guide it into his mouth, and when Magnus gasped Alec could feel his breath on his cock. Alec played with Magnus' balls with one hand as he sucked, revelling in the weight of Magnus' cock filling his mouth and bucking his hips up helplessly when Magnus finally swallowed him down and began to bob his head, his tongue swirling around the head of Alec's cock every time he almost let Alec's cock slip out of the wet heat of his mouth. 

Alec was already struggling to concentrate on sucking Magnus off but he heard Magnus pop open the cap of the lube they'd brought from home and for a moment he blanked out when he felt a slick finger rubbing his rim. He spread his legs for Magnus by instinct, and let out a loud moan muffled by Magnus' cock in his mouth when Magnus pushed his finger in. There was too much going on for Alec to do much more than moan around Magnus' cock after that; Magnus' slick fingers twisting and sliding in and out of Alec as he opened him up, and Magnus' clever tongue teasing Alec's cock, just enough to keep him on edge but not enough to let him come. Then Magnus' fingers found his prostate, and at Alec’s shout of pleasure, Magnus pulled off his cock before he could come. 

"Not so fast, darling," Magnus said, gracefully rearranging himself so that he was kneeling between Alec's legs. "Get on your hands and knees."

Alec took a moment to catch his breath, then scrambled to obey, arching his back and keeping his knees spread wide. He buried his face in the pillow and moaned when he felt the blunt head of Magnus' cock sliding into him, pushing past the slick circle of muscle easily and filling him up. 

"Fuck. You feel so good," Magnus panted as he bottomed out, his entire length buried inside Alec's ass. 

His hands found Alec's hips and Alec made a sound of protest when Magnus pulled out; then he thrust back in so hard that Alec couldn't hold in his cry of surprise and pleasure. Alec twisted his fingers in the bedsheets and gave up trying to stay quiet as Magnus began to fuck him torturously slow, dragging his cock across Alec's prostate every time he pulled out before slamming back into Alec. Alec's cock was hanging heavy between his legs, aching with his impending climax, and every nerve ending in his body was alight with pleasure. 

"Harder. Magnus, fuck me harder," he moaned, desperate grinding backwards in pursuit of his climax. 

Magnus covered his body with his and Alec keened when he felt Magnus' mouth on his soul-mark like a jolt of pure electricity. He threw his head back and shouted Magnus' name as he began to come on Magnus' cock, completely untouched. Magnus moaned as Alec clenched around Magnus' cock, but he didn't stop fucking Alec, pounding his tightening body until Alec was going out of his mind. Alec's cock was hardening again, and his arms had given out under him from the waves of pleasure crashing over him as Magnus traced every line of his soul-mark with his lips and tongue while he fucked him. In a moment, Magnus thrust hard into him one last time and emptied himself inside Alec with a moan, and Alec cried out as he came on Magnus' cock again, his cock twitching with a dry orgasm. 

Magnus did most of the clean up after that, since Alec was a bit too out of it. The sheets and the bed were weird and the room unfamiliar, but none of that mattered. Magnus was drawing idle circles on his shoulder with his thumb, both of them drowsy but still awake, and right now Alec felt like he could take on anything the world threw at them.

"If we hadn't been soulmates, do you think we would have chosen each other?" Alec asked.

Magnus put a finger under Alec's chin to turn his head towards him, smiling fondly at him. "I don't think I told you this, but I was going to take a chance on you even before I realised that my soul-mark had changed. I chose you before I knew you were supposed to be mine, and I choose you now."

Alec smiled and leaned in to kiss Magnus. "I choose you, too."


	9. Epilogue

It had taken them four months to find a new apartment, despite what Magnus thought were very simple criteria: some place affordable that was near The Institute and not too far from the Lightwoods or the Fells, with a proper kitchen for Alec and not some sad little corner with a microwave, and a walk-in closet for Magnus if possible. Thanksgiving and then Christmas had come and gone, and while Magnus had appreciated not having to be alone during the holidays, he was very relieved that it hadn't taken longer. 

For one, tensions between Isabelle, Jace, and their respective soulmates had taken a while to ease up. All four of them had gone to Catarina for group counselling and eventually Izzy and Maia had both decided that they wanted to keep their engagement but suggested that perhaps they could all still keep in touch and be platonic soulmates. To be fair, Catarina had said that it would be possible with a lot of effort on everyone's part and management of expectations, so Izzy and Maia had postponed their return to the camp in Antarctica to work things out. Jace and Clary hadn't wanted to get together just because they had both lost the chance to be with their soulmates, so they were taking things slow and trying to be friends first. It was still a work in progress. 

Secondly, it was pretty expensive for them to keep going out to hotels, especially since Magnus had discovered that multiple orgasms through soul-mark stimulation was a thing and he planned to take full advantage of it at every opportunity - which was why he was currently leaning against a pile of pillows in their bed with Alec between his legs sucking his cock while fingering him open with two fingers, even though they were supposed to be at The Institute in twenty minutes. Magnus ran his hands across the black lines, swirls, and circles of Alec's soul-mark that covered Alec's broad back; it looked like some sort of mandala, a symbolic representation of the universe, and grew more and more intricate and detailed with each passing day. But it was now clear that there was going to be a compass at the centre - something that could be used to help one find their way, just like the constellations of Magnus' star map soul-mark.

"Alexander, I'm ready," Magnus murmured as he traced the lines of Alec's mark with his fingertip, and Alec moaned around his cock. 

Alec pulled off and planted a kiss on Magnus' soul-mark as he eased his fingers out. They switched places, with Alec leaning against the pillows instead, and Magnus climbed into Alec's lap. With Alec holding his own cock steady, Magnus braced his hands on Alec's shoulders and sank down to take Alec's cock, and Alec bit his lips to stifle a moan out of habit. 

"You know I like to hear you," Magnus tutted, undulating his hips to draw out another moan from Alec as he took Alec deeper. 

"Old habits die hard," Alec said with a breathless grin. 

"Then I guess I have to help you unlearn those bad habits," Magnus murmured, fucking himself down a little harder, and they both moaned when Magnus finally took Alec's cock to the hilt, their bodies flush against each other. 

Alec's hands found Magnus' hips, one thumb on his soul-mark, and Magnus hummed in appreciation as he began to ride Alec's cock slowly, trying to find the right angle for Alec's cock to drag across his prostate. His hands slid down to Alec's back to find his starting soul-mark, having done this so many times that he didn't even have to be able to see it, and Alec grunted and bucked his hips upwards. 

"Fuck, that's it," Magnus gasped when he finally found the right spot. 

He began to ride Alec's cock a little faster, a little harder, chasing his own pleasure, and he could feel Alec's hungry eyes on him. 

"Like what you see?" Magnus asked with a grin. 

"You're so beautiful," Alec murmured, fitting one hand around Magnus' cock and starting to jerk him off with firm strokes. "Wanna see you come for me."

Magnus moaned, closing his eyes as he fucked himself harder on Alec's cock. A firm press of Alec's thumb into his mark was all it took for him to start coming, his release landing on Alec's abs, and Magnus keened when Alec gripped his hips with both hands and began to thrust up into him, hard and fast. Alec's thumb was still pressing into his soul-mark and he was still shivering with the aftershocks of his orgasm, but they'd discovered that as long as they maintained contact with each other's soul-marks it was possible to stay hard even after coming. Magnus raked his blunt nails down Alec back, making Alec cry out, his cock jerking inside Magnus' body. In retaliation, Alec leaned down to tease one of Magnus' nipples with his teeth and Magnus shouted in pleasure. 

"God, Alexander, I'm going to come again," he gasped as the heat inside him began to peak again, and Alec grunted as he pulled Magnus down onto his cock, burying himself as deep inside Magnus' body as he could go as they came together. 

\--

They reached The Institute right on time. Everything was already in place for the unveiling of the new menu and all the guests were already seated. Magnus had been involved in most of it but hadn't seen the final presentation in its entirety, and he was really looking forward to it. He waved at Maryse, Luke, Izzy, and Maia at the next table before taking his seat at the other VIP table with Cat, Ragnor, and Madzie, and the lights dimmed. 

With Magnus and Clary's involvement, it had become a multimedia production - a short video clip of the sun rising over the New York skyline that Magnus had filmed was projected onto their empty plates, then the meal kicked off with tasting portions of appetisers, the first of ten courses. There was a special version of the menu for kids, with fewer courses and a slightly different presentation to cater to their shorter attention spans, and Magnus was glad to see that all around him guests had been impressed by dishes like Clary's beautiful art deco pizza, surprised by the explosive "Fourth of July" cocktail sphere, and amused by the little joke about there being bacon in everything, even the cheesecake cupcakes. There was a round of applause for Alec, Clary, and Jace when they came out of the kitchen at the end of the meal, and Magnus rose and bowed when they thanked him for his contribution. 

There was a table reserved for the media who had been invited to the event, and they were now ushered to the bar section of the restaurant for a media panel for any questions they might have for Alec and Jace. Magnus had run through a list of possible questions with them but they seemed to be handling it all pretty well from where he was sitting. 

"I take it you're both settling in well at the new apartment?" Catarina asked with a smile. 

"We'll host a housewarming party when we come back from our trip. You'll finally get a chance to see our infamous sparkly blue fridge," Magnus said with a grin.

"Maybe the party will be a celebration for something else as well," Catarina teased, handing him a small velvet box from her bag - something that Magnus had asked Catarina to pick up from the jewellers so that Alec wouldn't find out about it. Magnus took a deep breath and quickly put it in his pocket, his heart suddenly beating twice as fast.

"Don't be nervous," she said soothingly. 

"You're planning to ask him when you get to Indonesia?" Ragnor asked. 

Magnus nodded, smiling. "We're going to attend a soulmate festival at the Borobudur Temple, and we'll be releasing sky lanterns at the end of it to make wishes for the future. I'm going to pop the question then."

"That sounds lovely. You'd better have a camera set up to take a video of it," Catarina said, kissing him on the cheek. "Have a good flight, love."

Magnus sent his friends off before grabbing a seat at the table nearer to the bar with Alec's family so that he could hear the interview. It was already winding down anyway, and Magnus was just in time to catch the end of Alec's answer. 

"...It's a love letter to New York, yeah, but I think love doesn't just focus on the pretty stuff. When you love someone, their odd quirks become endearing to you and you love them through the good days and the bad days," Alec said, smiling a little when he caught Magnus' eye. 

"All packed and ready to go?" Maryse asked, distracting Magnus a little from admiring Alec being all confident and assertive. 

"Our luggage is in the car. We're heading straight for the airport after this," Magnus agreed. 

Alec and Jace were thanking the reporters now, and after a while they came over with Clary. Alec took off his chef's coat and handed it to Jace, but now he seemed even more nervous than before the media panel.

"Is everything alright?" Magnus asked Alec, and Alec nodded quickly.

"You got it, bro. Good luck," Jace said, slapping Alec on the back, and at Alec's glare, quickly amended, "I meant good luck for the trip."

"You should get going, you'll miss your flight," Izzy said, putting her arms around them and steering them away from Jace. Out of the corner of his eye, Magnus saw Maia punch Jace in the arm.

"Are you having second thoughts about leaving The Institute right now? The festival is held every year, we could always try to catch next year," Magnus told Alec gently as they walked out to the car.

"No, I'm good, no second thoughts," Alec assured him, holding his hand tightly. "I'm in."

Magnus smiled and tilted his chin up to kiss him. "Good. Because I'm in, too." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End.
> 
> FYI Alec's mark is a little like [this](https://66.media.tumblr.com/dbe6b1e39474641b5d9b48a88929b875/f8d66407a60a6758-d9/s400x600/45711da8475627fc58aa6e9c6b9c95b66d6d3bce.jpg) in my mind.
> 
> Hope you guys had as much fun reading as I had writing! I'm on twitter @tethysea if you want to say hi. (Now I'm going to go work on my twenty-two Shadowhunter Bingo squares lol.)
> 
> Until next time, XOXO.


End file.
